


Quill Blind

by surrealsunday



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Halloween, Hedgehog Lucas, Light Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Vampire Eliott, but plot happened, sooooooo, this was supposed to be a ficlet, we're talking costumes here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 37,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27306931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrealsunday/pseuds/surrealsunday
Summary: Halloween AULucas expected leaving a Halloween costume to the last minute was going to result in nothing good. But Eliott… Eliott he did not expect.*Chapter 2 coming tomorrow*
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 63
Kudos: 324





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo this was supposed to be a short little ficlet... I don't know what happened... *insert me looking into the camera like Jim on The Office*
> 
> I hope you all enjoy a safe and fun Halloween and this fic brings you some happiness! <333
> 
> Note: Images of Eliott in costume below which include fake blood.

* * * * 

* * * *

“I’m wearing a giant, hedgehog onesie. Tonight is most definitely _not_ going to be my night.”

Alexia laughs loudly in response, reaching forward to adjust the hood of Lucas’s costume as they wait in line outside the bar. “Well if you’d listened to me and gone naked underneath it… tonight _could_ have been your night.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “I’d have to strip naked every time I went to piss.” She stares at him as though to say, ‘ _Exactly my point_ ’ and he nearly laughs, but he doesn’t want to encourage her in this line of thought. “I’d rather not have my naked ass ogled without my consent, thanks.”

She groans unhappily, turning away from him to complain to Yann in front of them in line and currently chatting with Arthur. “Cazas, tell your best friend to stop being so fucking boring.”

Yann looks back with an eyebrow raised. He looks so fucking cool in his pirate costume. It’s really unfair. And ok, so it’s Lucas’s fault considering he waited until the night before Halloween to find a costume, resulting in the only thing left in his size being a hedgehog onesie but… he still feels it should be in the best friend handbook that if one friend is going to look like an embarrassing loser on Halloween, the other should follow suit.

“You being boring, Lulu?”

“No,” Lucas harrumphs in response. “Alexia just would’a had me go in my underwear as a stripper or some shit if she’d had her way.”

She gasps loudly. “That would’ve been a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that?!”

Arthur reaches to pinch Lucas’s cheek before Lucas can slap him away. “You look cute, Lulu. Guys’ll eat it up.”

“Then eat you up,” Alexia adds with a cheeky smile. Lucas can’t say he’d really mind that. He’s been so caught up with the start of the school year at uni, he hasn’t really had time for guys. Yann would say that’s because he hasn’t made the time. But Lucas has to admit, his last breakup had cast a pallor over the prospect of dating. He’d never been all that into Florent. The boys had been telling Lucas to ‘cut the poor guy lose’ for weeks before Lucas had worked up the courage. It’s just that it had been nice to have someone around – someone who wanted him. Yeah, it was missing passion, but sex was sex, however lackluster.

The problem only arose when it become a little too clear just how deeply Florent felt for Lucas, and guilt had eaten away at Lucas’s insides to the point he’d convinced himself he was forming an ulcer. And, so, he’d faced Florent’s sad-sack face and cut him lose at the beginning of summer. And in the time since, Lucas just hadn't made the effort to date. Arthur would say – _loudly –_ that this didn’t preclude the possibility of sex. But Lucas had never been all that great at the whole ‘hook-up’ thing. He’s not against the idea – he’s _really_ not – but in the past, any guy who’s made a move has been scared off in short order by Lucas’s particular brand of flirting, or as Arthur would call it, "Berating the poor dude until he scurries away with his tail tucked between his legs." Lucas is much more inclined to go with Yann’s assessment that, "Dudes need to sack up if they want a chance with you."

Lucas dutifully follows as they’re admitted into the bar, only to immediately be taken aback by the sweltering heat inside. _Ugh_. He knew this onesie was a bad idea. His hand is immediately stopped however, on its planned track to push down the hood of his costume.

“No,” Alexia commands. “You promised you’d at least make an effort.”

“But it’s hot,” Lucas whines. “I’m going to sweat to death.”

She rolls her eyes, turning to continue leading them to where Lucas can see Emma, Daphne, Bas, and Manon have already commanded a table, having arrived to the bar earlier. Like Yann, Emma too is dressed as a pirate and immediately begins berating her former-boyfriend-now-just-friend for stealing her idea the moment they reach the table. Daphne and Bas are matching as Mario and Princess Peach. This plan had of course allowed Arthur to dress as Luigi and everyone had been happy. And as Lucas has already been aware, Manon is Rosie the Riveter.

“LUCAS!” Daphne squeals loudly, drawing the entire table’s attention to him. “Oh my god! You look so cute!!!”

Lucas sighs as she rounds the table to pull him into a tight hug, the rest of his friends either openly laughing or having the decency to somewhat smother their laughter (ok… only Manon does that).

“Looking good, baby Lu,” Emma laughs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lucas huffs, squirming out of Daphne’s hold. “There weren’t a lot of options.”

“You could have gotten creative with things from home – made your own costume,” Manon says with an amused smile.

“Who do I look like? Her?” He asks, gesturing at Alexia who had dressed as the literal embodiment of a rainbow, having a selection of rainbow-everything at home. She’d topped it off by dying her hair in the appropriate rainbow tones. “Besides,” he adds, “just had to throw this on. Suited my lazy nature.”

“I think you look good,” Bas chips in with a broad grin. “Wearing anything under that?” He wiggles his eyebrows ridiculously.

“You looking to find out?” Lucas banters back.

“Already got my princess. Sorry, Lu.” Bas reaches for Daphne, pulling her back to his side and granting a kiss to her cheek as she giggles.

Lucas looks away from the saccharine picture they make to Yann. “Drink run?” Yann nods in agreement and they quickly turn from the table before their friends can begin yelling drink orders. They'll get what they get. 

Lucas places himself behind, hanging loosely to Yann’s leather vest as his friend pushes his way through the crowd for the both of them. Lucas receives plenty of attention on the way – all of it unfortunately from inebriated university girls who shriek various forms of ‘Cute’, ‘Oh my god’, or ‘A puppy!!!’ – really not the attention Lucas was looking to get tonight but exactly what he should have expected considering he’d come as a giant plush-soft hedgehog.

Yann turns as he gets to the bar, reaching around Lucas’s back to pull him up to the counter, before he goes about attempting to flag down one of the very busy bartenders.

 _“Yann!”_ Despite the volume of the surrounding bar, the sound of Yann’s name is deep and booming, cutting across the noise.

Lucas turns in time with Yann to see a tall, attractive guy walking towards them with a wide, bright smile. He’s dressed in black tie, the white of his crisp shirt contrasting beautifully against his dark skin.

“Idriss,” Yann greets, reaching to grab his hand the moment he’s in reach. They pull together in a half-hug before pulling back. “Looking good, man.”

Idriss cocks an eyebrow. “Bond. James Bond.”

Yann laughs. “I should’a thought of that. Probably have chicks falling all over themselves tonight.”

“That was his plan,” comes another voice and then there’s a hand appearing on Idriss’s shoulder and another boy joining at his side, and he’s… well, he didn’t go for Idriss’s approach, though he’s dressed somewhat similarly. Lucas can’t tell exactly what he’s supposed to be but the contact lenses he wears and pale makeup applied to his skin does have the effect of making him look very Halloween appropriate – and deeply unsettling if Lucas is honest.

The new boy’s eyes drift from Yann until they settle on Lucas behind him and widen in surprise. “Oh.”

“Ah, sorry.” Yann turns slightly, pulling Lucas forward with a strong arm around his shoulders. “This little hedgehog is Lucas.”

Lucas pulls his eyes away long enough to smack Yann in the stomach. “Fuck off.”

“Oh my god.” It’s the new boy’s voice again and Lucas turns back to him. “You’re a hedgehog.”

Lucas doesn’t quite know what to make of the look on his face. “It was all that was left in the shop.” His tone is defensive and maybe a little too pissy considering they haven’t yet been introduced. The boy doesn’t look too thrown by it anyways, and his stare doesn’t break. Lucas can’t be sure if it’s the unnatural contact lenses, the intensity in the way he stares, the fact that he doesn’t appear to have blinked, or a combination of all of the above, but the hair on the back of Lucas’s neck stands on end.

“And this guy currently doing an amazing impression of a serial killer is Eliott.” Idriss interrupts the stare-off by thumping his friend roughly in the shoulder.

The boy – Eliott – turns to look at his friend with a frown, rubbing at his shoulder as he speaks. “I’m not. Or… well… I’m a vampire,” he adds with a furrowed brow, “so… I guess they’re serial killers, right? Except they only kill to survive so maybe that’s not fair.”

Idriss rolls his eyes with a deep sigh, looking as though this isn’t the first time he’s dealt with his friend’s unusual line of thinking. “I don’t know, bro.”

“But you have a bite,” Lucas interrupts, pointing towards Eliott’s neck, adorned with a fairly grisly and realistic prosthetic wound, blood and all. “Doesn’t that make you a victim?”

Eliott turns back to him with a wide smile, like Lucas has said something far more clever than he has. “Victim turned vampire,” he confirms, sliding a tongue along his teeth until he’s showing off sharp fangs. That explains the slight lisp he’s been speaking with. An involuntary shiver rushes through Lucas’s body.

“Who you guys here with?” Yann asks. “You wanna join us?”

“Yeah?” Idriss asks, looking delighted by the invitation. “My sis and our other friend bailed. Bar Halloween scene isn’t really their thing. So it’s just us.”

“Of course,” Yann enthuses. “We’re just getting some drinks first.”

“Nice.” Idriss moves to position himself next to Yann at the bar and they both turn back to flag down a bartender. Idriss’s size and fairly spectacular presence makes him stand out in a way the rest of the patrons do not and a bartender appears before them in no time.

Lucas bites his lip, looking out towards the rest of the bar as he shuffles his weight back and forth on his feet. He sees Eliott step closer out of the corner of his eye, though Lucas is oddly sure he would have been able to feel it, sight or not.

“I like it.”

“What?” Lucas asks, turning his face back to meet his unnatural eyes.

“Your costume.” Eliott reaches out, trailing fingers down the edge of the hood hanging over Lucas’s head, before dropping his hand back down to his side. “I like it. It suits you.”

Lucas scoffs. Is this guy for real? “Suits me?”

Eliott looks taken aback by Lucas’s change of tone. “Yes?” His voice lilts in question, his previous confidence having abandoned him.

“Suits me how? You don’t even know me.”

Eliott’s eyebrows rise and the side of his mouth twitches in the beginnings of a smile. “No, I guess I don’t.”

“Giving up so quickly?” Lucas snorts. “Here I thought I was going to get to hear how you could sense my inner spirit was that of a hedgehog, or something.” Lucas is absolutely being a dick, his tone all derision and disdain. He knows it, but he can’t quite help it. Eliott just… makes him feel unbalanced and maybe a little nervous. It makes Lucas's metaphorical hackles - or perhaps, considering his costume, quills would be more appropriate - rise. 

Eliott suddenly laughs. His smile is wide and amused. In combination with the fangs he wears as part of his costume, the image is as surreal and unsettling as the sight of him as a whole. Lucas mouth drops open. How does this boy manage to look so genuinely creepy and yet… hot. Ok, Lucas will admit it. He’s hot. He’s really, _really_ hot.

“No, you’re right,” Eliott says as his laughter tapers off. “Definitely no spikes to be found.”

Lucas can feel his mouth quirk up in an unwitting smile but before he can reply, Yann and Idriss have turned around, shots extended in hand. Yann bumps a hand into his shoulder until Lucas reaches to take the shot glass.

“Before we take the rest of the drinks back,” Yann explains as Idriss hands a shot to Eliott.

Lucas slants a side grin in Yann’s direction. “Trying to get me drunk, Cazas? Thinking that’ll improve your chances?”

Yann snorts. “Please. You’re as easy for me as Bas for Daphne.”

Lucas gasps in faux-offense. “Excuse me, Yann, but they’re a true love story. I only want you for the sex.”

Yann throws his head back as he laughs. “I’ll drink to that.” He raises his glass.

Lucas tilts his head and throws back the shot, letting his eyes settle back on the boys – one in particular, only as the alcohol burns down his throat. Eliott’s eyes are already on Lucas, sliding down to where Lucas’s tongue catches the remaining droplets of liquid on his lips. A bolt of electricity marks a path through Lucas’s body, finding a home deep in his lower belly. The effect is disconcerting. He wants to step closer; he feels bold and confident in ways he normally doesn’t when faced with someone as attractive as Eliott. But he feels nervous too, on edge, like a livewire placed too close to an open socket.

“You’re staring.” The words when Lucas speaks them have taken on a confident, flirtatious flair he hadn’t even intended. But he likes it – likes the way it makes him feel – staring back at Eliott who is so openly, _openly_ staring without shame. Lucas quirks an eyebrow, knowing his smile is probably speaking more to his pleasure at being the object of Eliott’s attention than he would like, but finding he doesn’t so much mind the transparency. “Beginning to think your friend was onto something with the serial killer thing.”

Said friend – Idriss – laughs loudly at Eliott’s side, slapping a hand to his shoulder and forcing Eliott to break the steadfast eye contact. “I like this friend of yours, Yann,” Idriss says as he glances between them. “Anybody who can give Eliott shit, can stay.”

Eliott groans in complaint at Idriss’s side. “You’re a useless wingman.”

Idriss makes a quick sound of dismissal, clearly not concerned by this assessment. He looks to Yann. “We taking drinks back?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yann confirms, nodding towards a number of bottles resting on top of the bar. “Grab those?” Yann reaches for a few before turning back to Lucas and nodding for them to make their way back to the table.

If it’s possible, the bar has become even more crowded in the time they’d spent retrieving drinks. Though it’s probable it only appears that way to Lucas because he’s leading the group through the crowd. And Lucas supposes he’s not the most imposing, currently dressed in a fuzzy, hedgehog onesie, but also… people are dicks.

“Yannnnnn,” Lucas whines when a number of particularly large men move in front of him and refuse to budge, even when Lucas puts his pointy elbows to use. A quick look back however reveals that, likely frustrated by Lucas’s slow progress or perhaps merely separated due to the mass chaos produced by a crowd in elaborate costumes, Yann is a distance away, making solid progress forward… without Lucas. The traitor. If Lucas had gone with one of the girls, they never would have left him stranded. Alexia’s right. Men are terrible.

 _“Yo, move your ass._ ”

The demand is not directed at Lucas thankfully, but the group of men crowded in front of him, and even better, the voice is attached to Idriss. He doesn’t seem to realize Lucas is trapped, merely responding in irritation to the men who are blocking his own route, but Lucas will take what he can get. Only, the moment he steps sideways to follow the path being carved out by Idriss, a number of the men step backwards directly into his path.

Lucas groans unhappily. “Can you move?!” He leans up onto his tiptoes in an attempt to get one of the guys’ attention but it’s of no use. The crowd is drunk and entirely unconcerned with the plight of small hedgehogs – god, no one tell Yann Lucas had that thought.

Lucas cringes, throwing his shoulder into the guy’s sweaty back. To top it all off, the asshole is dressed in some kind of toga and there’s skin… sweaty, hairy skin… skin Lucas has no interest in being pressed up against. But desperate times call for desperate measures and he begins attempting to squeeze himself between the table backing the wall, and the sweaty, tree trunk of a man blocking Lucas’s route, when suddenly a hand appears in front of him.

Listen, maybe Lucas is being a little dramatic due to his bar-filled-with-drunken-gross-uni-boys plight, but he swears there’s an angelic glow beaming from the palm raised in offer towards him. Lucas follows its path up to… Eliott. It’s Eliott staring at him, looking just as frazzled as Lucas but sweet too, smiling just a little, that is until he looks at the guy who has forced Lucas into a small wedge of space between the table and the wall of his body.

“Hey!” Eliott’s face transforms with annoyance and his other hand moves to the guy’s shoulder, pushing gently if firmly until the guy, not even looking like he has particularly registered the touch, stumbles forward slightly into the knit of his friends. “Stick with me,” Eliott says, looking back to Lucas and once more offering his hand.

Lucas doesn’t hesitate. He slips his hand into Eliott’s, clasping tightly as Eliott turns around and begins immediately pushing through the crowd. He keeps their entwined hands pressed to his lower back as he leads the way, and Lucas presses closer still, reaching for the crisp, white shirt spread across Eliott’s back and clasping tightly. Eliott isn’t even particularly big. Taller than Lucas maybe, but hardly as imposing as Idriss. He manages though, if a bit more politely than Lucas would have – Lucas catches at least one ‘excuse me’ and at least two ‘sorry’s’ as Eliott pushes through the crowd – and it’s nice. Lucas could have managed on his own, of course. He might have been a bit sweatier and a lot more annoyed for it, but he would have eventually found his way through the crowd. But it’s nice to have someone think of him. His own best friend deserted him among the masses but not Eliott. This strange boy Lucas has only just met, thought of him. It’s nice.

Eliott abruptly stops and Lucas runs directly into his back. _God_ , Lucas thinks with his face mashed to the white cotton of Eliott’s shirt, _he even smells good_. It’s unfair. How is Lucas supposed to resist a boy like this? So goddamn beautiful, when nothing about his costume should be, thoughtful and sweet… and smelling like a delicious mix of the shower products Manon uses (and Lucas steals whenever he’s over at her place though he’d only admit as much under penalty of death). It suits Eliott. Somehow, Lucas has decided, it suits him.

Eliott’s turning back to face him and Lucas quickly releases his hold only to realize… oh… they’re back at the table. Well that’s convenient.

“You alright?”

Lucas drags his eyes away from his friends who have formed various conversational pairs. Idriss, Lucas notes, seems to be deep in conversation with Manon. When his gaze falls back on Eliott’s face, the other boy's eyes are on him, soft and maybe a little amused. Oh. He asked Lucas a question, didn’t he?

“Yeah,” Lucas answers vaguely, only about 80% sure that’s an appropriate answer to whatever Eliott asked. “Um… thanks,” He gestures back over his shoulder in the direction they’d come, “for the save.”

Eliott’s mouth quirks up to one side. “Figured those spikes would have served you better. Bit surprised really.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, only partially successful in suppressing his smile. “Didn’t quite get a chance to use ‘em.”

“No?”

“No.” Lucas cocks an eyebrow to match Eliott’s. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Eliott presses his lips together and furrows his eyebrows in a ridiculous attempt to look more serious. “Yes. Very intimidating.”

“Hey,” Lucas warns, extending a pointing finger towards him as Eliott’s mouth instantly pulls in a smile, “don’t let the onesie fool you. Could kick your ass any day.”

The threat only makes Eliott’s smile widen, his eyes scrunching in the corners. “I think I’d let you.”

Lucas snorts, but before he can formulate a reply more appropriate than, ‘How about we fuck instead?’, Yann’s voice is shouting from across the table.

“Lulu! Where’d you go?”

Lucas rounds on him incredulously. Yann’s smile is just this side of sloppy and he’s clearly on his way to happily inebriated. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Yann’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “What’d I do?”

What did Lucas ever do to deserve a best friend like this? Come to think of it, maybe a guy as searingly hot as Eliott flirting with Lucas is the universe’s way of apologizing for Lucas’s absolute dumbass of a best friend.

“What’d you do?! You left me stranded in the middle of sweaty, disgusting slabs of meat known as uni boys. That’s what you did. Eliott had to rescue me.”

“Rescue you?” Eliott’s voice pipes up from beside him, pleased and surprised.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” Lucas’s smile no doubt takes away from any impact behind his words but with Eliott looking at him like that, well… Lucas is ok with it.

“Wait,” Alexia speaks from across the table, positioned next to Yann, “where did _you_ come from?” She’s looking at Eliott – looking at him like she’s plucked thoughts right out of Lucas’s head with regards to where her evening might end up.

“Oh, sorry,” Eliott offers, smiling sweetly at the numerous eyes now on him. “I’m Eliott.”

“Believe me,” Alexia snorts, “you don’t have to be sorry about that.”

Lucas groans, pushing his hood back from his head and glaring in Alexia’s direction. It’s too hot. He’s sweaty and too frustrated to deal with a no-holds-barred Alexia hitting on his… ok, he’s just going to say it… his potential hook-up for the evening. His _spectacular_ potential hook-up. 

“Alexia.” At least his tone reads the appropriate level of disapproval.

“Oh relax,” she scoffs, “I’m not out to steal your –” Someone up there must be looking out for Lucas because she cuts herself off with a gasp as her eyes find him. “Lucas! No! The hood.”

“It’s too hot,” he whines, pulling at the zipper of the onesie as he shuffles in a way that likely resembles a toddler stomping their feet in complaint. “I don’t wanna!” He makes sure to jut his lower lip out in a pout and hears Eliott laugh lightly at his side. It takes every modicum of self-restraint to keep his attention on Alexia. He doesn’t see what the big deal is anyways. If everyone else wants to make a thing out of Halloween, fine. But Lucas doesn’t see why he has to. He dressed up in a hedgehog onesie for god’s sake. Good enough.

Even as a giant rainbow, Alexia manages to look thoroughly unimpressed. “Come here then.” She waves a hand towards him. “At least let me fix you up. Your hair’s a mess.”

Lucas frowns, bringing a hand up to ruffle his sweat-damp hair, but does as told, reluctantly moving away from Eliott and around the table until he finds himself next to Alexia. The rest of the table pick up their conversations, leaving Alexia to fuss over him.

“Is this really necessary?” Lucas asks, tugging at the zipper of his onesie slightly, wondering if he can get away with taking at least the top part down.

“What’s going on with that?”

Lucas wrinkles his forehead in question. “What?”

She’s smirking and it occurs to Lucas that her insisting on fussing with his hair just might have been a ruse for some other sort of scheming – scheming he should have seen coming. “ _That_ ,” she repeats, tilting her head and directing her eyes to Eliott across the table. The other boy doesn’t notice he’s become the subject of their conversation, happily chatting with Idriss and Manon at his side.

Lucas looks back to her, mouth already pulling up in a self-satisfied grin. “ _That_ is Eliott.” His sass is rewarded with a sharp smack to the side of his head. “Hey!”

“Please tell me you’re planning to do something about the way that boy was looking at you.”

Lucas perks up, dropping his hand from where he’d been petting his head in a wasted attempt to garner sympathy, flicking eyes between Eliott and Alexia instead. “How was he looking at me?”

“I know you’re not that blind.” She tilts her head as she looks at him and smirks. “So… you _do_ want him then?”

Lucas shrugs, dropping his eyes to the floor a little uncomfortably. “I dunno. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” she laughs abruptly, “I’ll say. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually go for it.”

Lucas frowns. “What are you talking about? You remember Florent.”

“Ugh,” she groans. “Yeah. Surprisingly, I do remember despite him being the most forgettable of your boyfriends yet.”

“Hey –” He goes to protest, though he’s not entirely sure why – she’s not wrong, but she cuts him off before he’s able.

“I’m just saying, for as long as I’ve known you it’s like you fall into relationships by accident, or like…” Her face scrunches as she thinks. “You figure it’s something to do… like laundry on a Saturday night when you don’t have plans.”

Lucas exhales a slight laugh through his nose. “A relationship with sex is a little better than doing laundry.”

“See, you say ‘a little better’ like you’re joking,” she raises an eyebrow, “only you’re not. And believe me sweetcheeks, sex should be a lot better than that.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Why are we even talking about this? What was your point?”

“Glad you asked,” she says with a mischievous smile that has Lucas wanting to take a few steps back. He won’t of course – showing fear in the face of one Alexia Martineau is like adding a few drops of blood to shark infested waters – but damn if he doesn’t want to. “Strip.”

Lucas promptly chokes on air. “What?!” He manages to ask in between coughing and sucking in lungful’s of air.

“You heard me,” she snorts. “You know you were gonna spend the night bitching about how hot you were in that,” she nods down at his onesie. “So, strip.” She doesn’t wait for him to comply, reaching for his zipper and immediately sliding it down to his waist.

“Alexia!” Lucas gasps like she’s just proposed he put on a strip-show for a congregation of churchgoers. He grabs the sides of his onesie and pulls them tightly across his chest. Sure, he might look a little like a scandalized woman who’s just had her breasts exposed, despite the fact that he wears a shirt beneath his onesie, but it’s an entirely involuntary reaction. Alexia hasn’t given up, reaching for the shoulders of his costume and Lucas bats her hands away. “Stop that! Stop that!”

“Oh my god,” she scoffs. “Stop being such a prude and strip. Then we can put this plan of yours into action.” Her hands thankfully move away from his clothing and back up into his hair, combing back strands and fussing over a few falling down over his eyes.

“Plan? I don’t have a plan.” Not only doesn’t he have a plan, he’s feeling a lot like Alexia does, and he might not have a lot of choice in the role he’s been cast.

She nods. “Which is why you’re so lucky I’m here.”

“But how is…” He drops his voice, though it’s unlikely anyone will hear them over the surrounding noise, and glances furtively towards Eliott. “How is me stripping going to help anything?” Alexia stares at him like he’s just asked the stupidest question imaginable and it draws a slightly laugh from Lucas. “I’m wearing a shirt under this, Alexia. Not really the scandal you’re likely imagining if I take it off.”

“Mmhmm,” she hums, eyes skating up and down his chest, “well, we’ll deal with that problem later – or your hottie across the table can.” Her smile widens when Lucas rolls his eyes. “But listen… trust me on this, ok? You know you look cute as fuck in that costume, right?”

Lucas shrugs. “I mean…” He hadn’t really considered ‘cute’ being a particularly ideal adjective when it came to potential hook-ups, especially with a guy like Eliott, who made the word ‘hot’ seem like a vast under-appraisal. “I guess?”

“So,” Alexia continues, “we’ve established you’re cute. Now it’s time to blow his dick off with how hot you are.”

A slightly hysterical giggle bursts from Lucas before he can stop it. “That’s graphic.”

She wiggles an eyebrow. “One can hope. So?” She tilts her head to the side assessing him. “You’ve been bitching about that costume since you walked in here. You really gonna resist just ‘cause it was my idea?”

Lucas sighs. He’s more than happy at the prospect of getting out of at least the upper half of his onesie – though she’s not wrong about him being tempted to resist on the mere principal of not giving in to her – but if he’s honest, the idea that someone else is aware of his plans… _wishful thinking_ really... when it comes to where the night might lead, leaves him feeling just a little bit queasy. Alexia is right, is the thing. Lucas doesn’t pursue guys. It’s not that men are falling over themselves pursuing him either. But he’s dated, he’s had a few relationships and every time it’s been… eh – something he ‘trips’ into more than actively chooses. And while Eliott may be no more than a prospective hook-up, and there’s no need to overthink the situation any more than that, the thought of pursuing him and being… _rejected_ , is a lot more terrifying than Lucas expected. And there’s a chance – a very real chance, that Lucas is reading the situation wrong and Eliott is simply a nice guy… a hot, sweet, mildly flirty guy… looking to hook-up with whoever makes themselves available, Lucas or not.

Lucas looks up and across the table, eyes landing on Eliott’s profile. He traces the arch of Eliott’s eyebrow down to the cut of his cheekbone, down to the sharp angle of his jaw, flexing slightly as he talks. Lucas wants to sink his teeth there. It should be illegal to look that hot when dressed so ridiculously. Who dresses up for Halloween, slaps on ghoulish makeup, blood and fangs, and comes out looking like a model?

Eliott’s head is turning, green-grey eyes appearing far darker in the dim light of the bar, and catching. Lucas jerks his eyes away, turning quickly back to Alexia. His heart is rabbiting in his chest. It’s ridiculous he should be so nervous, so… interested. That’s what it is, isn’t it? He’s interested – _more than_ – and he’s not used to it.

“Ok.”

Alexia’s smile widens. “Ok?”

“Just…” Lucas hedges, biting his lip. “No more meddling, ok? You’re making me nervous. Just… let me figure this out, alright?”

She sighs but nods, looking resigned if a little reluctant about it. “Fine. But I only want what’s best for you…” Her mouth quirks up in a smile. “And by that, I mean a guy who fucks you like you so obviously need to be fucked.”

Lucas sighs loudly, reaching for his zipper and sliding it down as he glares at Alexia. “Just for that, I’m not getting the cute lab girl’s number for you. You can do it yourself.” He begins shimming out of the top half of the onesie, peeling it back from his shoulders and down his arms as she watches, looking entirely unconcerned by his threat.

The air from the bar hits Lucas’s his over-heated skin as though he’d stepped outside on a cool autumn day. No doubt the bar is sticky with heat but peeling back the heavy layer of his fleece-lined onesie allows for instant relief, and he sighs happily, tying it to his waist. The unfortunate consequence of having been zipped up in it so long, is that Lucas’s t-shirt sticks to his body with sweat, clinging to his chest and abs. Lucas picks at the material grimacing. It’s unpleasant but still better to the alternative. Arms now free, he reaches up to scrape back his hair with a satisfied groan.

“Fuck, that’s better.”

There’s a loud sound coming from the other side of the table – a cough? – when suddenly droplets of beer are hitting Lucas’s skin. Lucas swipes confusedly at his arm, glancing up to see they’ve come from… Eliott? Eliott who appears to be choking on his beer. Eliott who… spit it across the table? He has one hand on the table, the other at his on his chest while he coughs and attempts to regain his breath. Idriss is at his side, slapping Eliott’s back unhelpfully as he laughs. The commotion has caught the attention of the rest of the table and everyone has paused to watch.

“You alright, man?” Bas asks, while Daphne adds on, “Do you need some water?”

Lucas is pretty sure he hears Alexia comment, “My work here is done,” under her breath.

Eliott waves the concern off, inhaling a deep breath and wiping at his teary eyes, a consequence of his coughing fit. “I’m good, sorry.”

“You sure you don’t need some water?” Manon asks, looking almost as amused as Idriss. “I could…” She glances in the direction of the bar, the path blocked by what looks like a code-violating number of people. “Actually, I’m not too sure I could make it to the bar by myself.”

“I could help,” Idriss offers, ever the gentleman where Manon is concerned apparently. He’s bestowed a sweet smile from the woman at his side for the offer.

“This place is getting a bit much,” Manon admits, scrunching her nose as someone bumps into her from behind, pushing her closer to Idriss. “Not really my idea of a good time.”

There’s various forms of agreement from the assorted group, further conversation about the topic – Lucas doesn’t hear any of it. Because Eliott has looked up. And he’s looking at Lucas.

Lucas isn’t sure anyone has ever looked at him like that before. Like… he’s the only one in the room… the only thing that matters. Eliott looks at him like Lucas is all he sees – all he wants. The possibility of rejection suddenly doesn’t seem like such a foreboding prospect – not when this exists, this feeling. God, Lucas wants him. He’s never wanted someone like this. The feeling is tangible, like a living, breathing thing between them, pulsing like a heartbeat.

“I know a place.” Eliott doesn’t look away as he speaks, and for one heart stopping moment, Lucas thinks Eliott is talking only to him. Even more startling is the realization that Lucas would. He’d leave with Eliott, no questions asked. The spell is broken when Eliott blinks, breaking their eye contact as he scans the faces of their friends, face widening with a smile. “I know a place we can go.” Lucas has no idea what this is in reference to. Were they discussing leaving? Did all conversation only cease for Lucas the moment his eyes met Eliott's?

Idriss makes a loud sound of derision. “Yeah, I bet. Leave it up to you and you’ll be dragging my ass through some sketchy abandoned building again – callin’ it a good time.”

“Yeah,” Eliott responds, looking unapologetic. “It’s Halloween, isn’t it? What better time?”

“Abandoned buildings?” Lucas asks, satisfied only when Eliott’s eyes land back on him. “I don’t get it. You explore abandoned buildings for fun?” This is an interesting development. “Living up to the whole vampire persona, or what?” He adds with a cheeky smile. 

Idriss snorts, mumbling something to the effect of, “Fursona more like,” but Lucas can’t afford him much attention, not when his eyes are locked with Eliott’s.

“Something like that,” Eliott admits. “You heard of urbex?”

Lucas bites his lip, pulling one shoulder up in a slight shrug. “Yeah, I’ve – I’ve heard of it.” He’s pretty sure he’s heard the word at least. Maybe. What it refers to he has no idea. But he gets the distinct impression this is something important to Eliott, and admitting he has no real knowledge of the subject will divest him of whatever hot-guy points he managed to amass with his impromptu semi-striptease.

“No you haven’t,” Eliott laughs.

Lucas’s mouth drops open, too shocked at being called out to be properly embarrassed. “I have!”

Eliott nods with exaggerated seriousness. His smile remains, teasing and far too sexy if Lucas’s heart has anything to say about it. “Ok. Do us the honours then.” Eliott waves a hand to the table, where they have captured the attention of a couple of friends. “Explain away.”

Heat rushes to Lucas’s face as he glances amongst his friends. Most don’t look like they’re paying particular attention, but a few – Manon and Yann in particular – most certainly are. They’re a teasing smile on Eliott’s face when Lucas looks back to him. He looks smug, and sexy, and… like a total asshole. He is. He’s being a dickhead. And worse yet, Lucas likes it. He likes the challenge he reads in Eliott’s eyes and the way it makes his blood pump more quickly through his veins. He likes the focus and attention Eliott demands, and the way he matches Lucas’s defiance with equal cheek.

“Don’t be a dick,” Idriss suddenly speaks, slapping a hand to Eliott’s chest. “Is this how you get laid? Pan community should revoke your membership.”

Eliott groans, ripping his gaze away from Lucas to glare at his friend. “I swear to god, Idri –”

“Urbex,” Idriss interrupts, looking between Manon and Lucas, “is urban exploration.”

“I was gonna explain,” Eliott complains. Lucas doesn't manage to smother his smile in response, his own embarrassment inconsequential in the face of Eliott being taken down a notch by his best friend.

“Oh shit, I know about that,” Yann says. “Dated a girl who was into it. It’s like… exploring abandoned, broken-down places and shit, right?”

Idriss snorts. “Basically.”

“Why though?” Lucas asks, waiting for Eliott’s attention to return to him before he continues. “Why would you want to? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Or illegal?” Manon asks with an eyebrow raised.

Eliott shrugs, looking between them with a small smile. “Sometimes. But it’s…” His eyes drop as he trails off, shaking his head before he looks back up to meet Lucas’s eyes, his own shining. “It’s so cool – exploring new places, places others can’t get to, like... solving the mystery. And they’re these abandoned spaces but it’s like you can feel others there – maybe not literally but like… their presence… the history.” He smiles, wide and bright, teeth shining. “Plus, it’s really fun.”

“Well I think that sounds creepy as hell,” Alexia, silent to this point, speaks from Lucas’s side. “I’m in.”

“What exactly we talkin’ here?” Yann asks, looking slightly more skeptical. “Breaking and entering? ‘Cause you know if anyone is gonna end up in the back of a cop car, it’s gonna be me. You white boys will be let off with a warning.”

Idriss snorts, offering Yann a clasp of hands in commiseration. “Truth.”

“No, no,” Eliott laughs. “There’s no security, I promise. Just surrounding fences and there’s more than one way to get in. It’s a popular spot for urbex and…” He glances around the table with a sneaky smile. “Ghost hunters.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” Arthur intones, paying a lot more attention to the conversation now. “Now we’re talking.”

“Honestly,” Manon says, glancing around them at the crowds, “I’d take anything over this bar at the moment.”

“Guess I’m in too then,” Idriss agrees, shamelessly obvious about where his own motives lie when it comes to Manon – though she doesn’t look like she minds in the least. 

“And you?” Eliott asks. Lucas looks back to see Eliott is looking at him. “Will you come?”

Heat expands in Lucas’s chest and he tries not to show his pleasure too obviously. “Where? You haven’t said.”

Eliott grins, quirking an eyebrow. “Scared?”

“No,” Lucas scoffs immediately.

“Not even a little?”

Lucas wants to bite the teasing smile right off Eliott’s face. “No. Not even a little.”

“Then trust me,” Eliott suggests, smile widening. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Idriss laughs from beside him, “You are so lame.”

Lucas is inclined to agree. He likes it though. “That why you dressed as a vampire? To scare everyone away?”

Eliott’s eyebrows rise. He looks surprised by the question. “Dunno. Did you dress as a hedgehog to attract everyone to you?”

Lucas can feel his smile stretch across his face and doesn’t bother restraining the breadth of its joy. “You saying you find hedgehogs attractive? Bit weird that.”

Eliott chuckles, a low rumble that ripples across Lucas’s skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “I’m saying you as this…” He waves a hand to suggest the length of Lucas’s body, “cute fucking hedgehog is too perfect a choice not to have been intentional.”

Lucas is most definitely blushing. “Sorry to disappoint. Was just as luck would have it.”

“Fate then,” Eliott allows with a soft smile. He holds Lucas’s gaze, eyes softening the longer Lucas doesn’t break the contact. Lucas isn’t reading this wrong. This gorgeous boy wants him too. Maybe just as much.

“You two done?” Idriss again, and when Lucas manages to look away from Eliott he’s surprised to realize a number of his friends have already left the table, leaving only Idriss, Manon, and Yann, along with Eliott and himself. Idriss looks to Yann. “We really just agree to chaperone this nonsense?”

Yann laughs. “Don’t think we’ve even seen the beginning of it, bro.”

“Alright,” Eliott interrupts, not looking the least bit embarrassed, “enough. Let’s get out of here.” He turns to push Idriss away from the table, only subsiding when Idriss steps away with a gentle hand to Manon’s lower back.

Yann glances briefly back at Lucas, offering an amused smile and shake of his head before he moves to follow Idriss and Manon.

When Eliott looks back, his hand is already extended towards Lucas, mouth curled in a teasing smile. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost in the crowd,” he offers as explanation.

Lucas rolls his eyes and refuses to take the extended hand. Sure he wants to. There is no reality in which Lucas doesn’t want to be in skin-to-skin contact with Eliott again. But Eliott’s already rescued him once and playing damsel in distress is not Lucas’s style. “I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Oddly, Eliott does look genuinely disappointed by this, and Lucas tries not to thrill too obviously at the fact.

“Got spikes, remember?”

This draws a grin from Eliott, who nods, and with one last lingering look at Lucas, eyes skating down to his chest and darting away, Eliott turns and begins leading the way through the thick crowd. There’s a sudden surge of bodies as patrons notice the table that’s been let unoccupied by their departure, and Lucas finds himself caught in the path of an aggressive… lumberjack? A lumberjack or Dexter, Lucas isn’t sure. Whatever the guy is supposed to be, he leaps for the table, entirely unconcerned for the half-dressed hedgehog in his path, and sends Lucas careening into Eliott’s back. Lucas somewhat salvages the stumble, pressing hands to Eliott’s back to stop his momentum prior to full body contact, and releasing only a tiny squeak of surprise which he’s sure is lost in the din of the surrounding bar. He can feel blood rush to his face immediately anyhow, and he waits for the moment Eliott will turn around, smirk in place. Only…

A hand appears instead. Eliott’s hand. He’s reached back behind himself, and offers it, fingers extended and grasping. If possible, Lucas’s blush deepens even further. But it’s ok… it’s ok because Eliott doesn’t know, he won’t see, and Lucas just… might be crushing so hard he has no idea what to do with himself. No… no, that’s not true. He knows one thing he can do.

He reaches for Eliott’s hand, warm skin meeting warm skin, and holds tight. Eliott squeezes once, twice, his thumb sweeping across the back of Lucas's hand, and leads the way.

* * * *

“A sanitorium.” Lucas gapes at the darkened building before them. “You brought us to an _abandoned_ sanitorium.”

“Would it be less scary if it wasn’t abandoned?”

Lucas turns to Eliott with narrowed eyes, stabbing a finger directly into his chest which, counter to Lucas’s intent, only makes Eliott’s smile grow. “Listen, mister, we may have only just met, but I know a serial killer move when I see one.”

“Nah,” Eliott denies, obviously suppressing laughter, “serial killers aren’t this creative.” He’s long since taken out his contacts and vampire fangs, and the sight of his genuine eyes and smile, is no less impactful.

“Sound like you know a lot about that.”

Eliott laughs and reaches for the hood of Lucas’s onesie, zipped over his upper body once more to ward off the chill of the night. He flips the hood up over Lucas’s head, pulling the sides down tightly against his face. His thumbs brush delicately against Lucas’s cheekbones as he does so and Lucas finds himself holding his breath, exhaling shakily only when Eliott speaks.

“How can you be sure?”

Lucas’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. “You’re talking in detail about how creative serial killers are and you wanna know –”

“No,” Eliott interrupts with another laugh. “How can you be sure we only just met?”

This question doesn’t lessen Lucas’s confusion. “Do you mean like… parallel universes?” 

Eliott’s eyebrows shoot up and he chuckles lightly. “I didn’t.” He pauses, tilting his head slightly to the side as he regards Lucas. “You believe in that? In parallel universes?”

Lucas nods. “Sure. It’s a lot more likely there’s an infinite number of universes than there being just this one. Don’t you?”

Eliott doesn’t look convinced. “Dunno. I don’t think so.”

Lucas sniffs, turning to look towards the abandoned building where he can see his friends disappearing amidst the darkened structures. “Well you’re wrong. You’re definitely a vampire in one of ‘em.”

Eliott laughs and his eyes are still on Lucas’s profile. Lucas can feel them. “I wouldn’t be.”

Lucas glances back towards him. “No?”

Eliott’s smile widens. “Don’t even eat meat.”

Lucas has to look at him fully at that, turning his body back to face Eliott. “You’re vegetarian?”

“Mmhmm.”

“God,” Lucas groans, squeezing his eyes shut and cursing his luck. The first guy who inspires an effort in him, and he has to be _this_ … hot, sweet, thoughtful… and a vegetarian vampire. “Of course.”

“Why of course?” Eliott asks through a laugh.

Lucas opens his eyes and offers a slight shake of his head. “Just… of course.”

“And you?” Eliott asks, smile stretched across his face.

“What about me?”

“Are you a hedgehog in one?”

“Oh my god,” Lucas groans, turning away from Eliott and deciding there’s no time like the present to get this horror show on the road. He walks towards the opening in the fence their friends had passed through “It’s just a costume.”

“I don’t think so,” Eliott disagrees as he follows, slipping through the slit in the fence behind Lucas and quickening his steps until they’re walking side-by-side. “You’re totally a hedgehog in one.”

Lucas huffs, mouth twitching up into a smile despite his attempts to smother it. “Shut up.” He comes to a stop once more as they stand on the border of the darkened building. It stretches up and away from them, a seemingly endless labyrinth of empty halls and floors that disappear into the dark of the night. He can feel Eliott’s eyes resting once more on the side of his face. It’s extraordinary and unfamiliar – how merely being the subject of someone’s gaze can feel like a physical touch. Lucas turns his head to catch Eliott’s eyes. “What?”

“Was just wondering whether to tell you,” Eliott says quite cryptically.

It’s bait, but Lucas is willing to take it. “Tell me what?”

Eliott steps closer, right into Lucas’s physical space. He pauses for only a split second before he tips his head down and closer. Lucas’s heart is suddenly lodged in his throat along with his breath. His mouth parts as he stares up at Eliott.

Eliott licks his lips, before he speaks in a quiet rumble. “I'm sensing your inner spirit. Definitely a hedgehog.”

Lucas shoves him back with hands to his chest. “God. Shut up!”

“What?” Eliott laughs, reaching for Lucas only to be batted away. “It’s true.”

Lucas doesn’t reward him with any further response on the subject. Turning and marching towards the open doorway leading into the lower floor of the building instead. “We doing this or what?”

Eliott quickly jogs to catch up. “Didn’t seem so eager before.”

Lucas does his best not to hesitate on the precipice, firmly walking forward as he offers a careless shrug. “Nothing to be scared of, right?” His voice betrays him, wavering precariously as he points his cellphone light into the pitch-black space stretching ahead. The light bounces off the walls and supporting pillars, illuminating the graffiti which seems to decorate every available surface.

“You sure?” When Eliott speaks his voice is low and directly at Lucas’s ear, face brushing against the hood of Lucas’s costume.

Lucas is proud of the way he only jumps a very little, quickly turning his face towards Eliott and adopting his least impressed expression. “This vampire thing? Really not working for you.”

Eliott chuckles, “Really? ‘Cause this hedgehog thing? Definitely working for you.” He continues around Lucas. He’s pointed his phone light towards his own face, casting the angles of his features in dramatic shadow.

Lucas bites his lip around a smile. “What’s with you and my costume?”

Eliott raises one eyebrow, keeping his face illuminated as he backs away from Lucas, further into the hallway. “Super hot guy dressed up as a super cute hedgehog… and you really have to ask?”

Lucas is suddenly enormously thankfully for the shadows surrounding them for hiding the depth of his blush. Unsure exactly how to reply to such a blatant compliment, he redirects, gesturing to Eliott as he follows him down the hall.

“You gonna walk backwards the entire way?”

Eliott grins, waiting until Lucas is directly in front of him before he turns, putting them side-by-side but keeping his eyes on Lucas. “If it means I’m looking at you.”

Lucas scoffs delighted despite himself. “Lines like that really work for you?”

Eliott shrugs, his smile not diminishing in the least. “Pretty sure you’ll be the judge of that.”

A flurry of excitement erupts in Lucas's stomach at the words. He’s never been with someone – someone he truly _wanted_ – where it’s been this clear the feeling is mutual. But that’s what’s happening here, isn’t it? Eliott wants him. Eliott knows Lucas wants him too. It’s like… foreplay. Delicious, spine-tingling foreplay, when they both know where it’s leading. It feels a lot like the moment before a really good kiss – when you _know_ it’s going to be a really good kiss – and the tension is singing in the air, the sheer _desire_ crackling between you, waiting for that moment of connection. And _fuck_ , Lucas wants it. Wants Eliott.

A loud shriek, followed by uproarious laughter breaks the spell, and they both turn their heads in time to stare in the direction of the noise, somewhere past the darkness of the foreboding hall where their friends continue to laugh, the sound bouncing off the stone.

Lucas chuckles, recognizing the voice currently yelling something about the others being assholes. “Daphne.”

Eliott hums as they continue their walk down the dark corridor. “Should we catch up to them?”

Lucas shrugs, a little reluctant at the thought of anyone else imposing on their time together, but also recognizing it’s perhaps best that the group not remain completely separated while trespassing in an abandoned, potentially dangerous, scary-as-fuck once-sanitorium. “Suppose.”

Eliott is directing the light of his phone against the walls as they pass and makes a small noise of surprise. “Shit. Look at that.” He’s running the light along an image painted on the wall. Spray-painted, Lucas supposes, though it doesn’t look anything like the surrounding graffiti. It’s a woman’s face in profile. She’s beautiful and clearly meant to be, the features of her face painted in vibrant colour, but it changes as her head extends back to her hair, curls forming other images, some of them as pretty and colourful as the face from which they've grown, flowers and lines of colour and shape that suggest something like music or dancing, but other images take form too. Bled of colour they’re garish and… well… Lucas can’t think of another way to describe them but scary. None of the scarier forms are particularly recognizable as any one thing. Instead they’re a combination of broken images, fangs, blood, claws, things being torn and ripped. The broken and weathered quality of the wall only adds to the impact, as though the creatures themselves have begun tearing through the wall.

Lucas shivers as he watches Eliott get closer, examining the image in detail. “Wow.”

“It’s incredible,” Eliott remarks, his voice awed. “I wonder who did it.”

“It’s graffiti. Isn’t the point not to know?” Lucas asks, not entirely sure whether this is a stupid question but curious all the same.

“Yes,” Eliott admits, looking back at Lucas with a small smile. “In a way. Artist’s like this though – they tend to leave a tag – like the name they’re known by on the streets.”

“On the streets,” Lucas snorts. “Makes it sound like you’re part of a gang or something.” Eliott looks back at him with an eyebrow raised in suggestion and it only makes Lucas scoff louder. “Please. I may have only known you for five minutes, but I still know there’s no way.”

Eliott chuckles, nodding in acquiesce. “Well, I mean, you could argue the street art scene is a kind of gang.” His forehead scrunches. “But like… without the history of violence, misogyny, murder, and all of that.”

“Wait,” Lucas stares at him, eyebrows climbing up to his forehead, caught on the first part of Eliott’s comment, “you do this? Art like this?” His eyes dart between the wall and Eliott before narrowing in suspicion. “Or are you just saying that to seem cool?”

A laugh bursts from Eliott. “I am definitely saying it to sound cool, but…” He grins, defiant and pleased. “It’s also true.”

“Seriously?” Lucas’s voice is a little awe-filled now. “Do you have a tag?”

Eliott nods. “A raccoon.”

“Shit. So you do this.” Lucas gestures at the wall. “Like, street art?”

“Maybe not exactly like this,” Eliott clarifies. “Not yet.”

Lucas looks back to the picture spanning the wall, another involuntary shiver raising goosebumps across his skin. “I think I’m ok with that. This one gives me the creeps.”

“Really?” Eliott doesn’t sound insulted, merely contemplative and considering. “I like it. It’s like they pulled it out of my head.”

“What? Why?” It occurs to Lucas only after he’s asked and Eliott looks towards him with hesitant eyes, that perhaps this is an insensitive question, considering the nature of the image. “Fuck. Sorry. I mean… you don’t have to tell me.”

“Nah, it’s ok,” Eliott allows with a subtle shake of his head, looking back to the painting as he speaks. “I just struggled for a lot of years with my mental health. Still do.” He moves a finger to trace a shape on the wall. “I’m bipolar,” he says after a hesitation, looking cautiously towards Lucas and continuing only when Lucas, after a moment to digest the information, nods in acceptance. “I guess it just reminds me of those two sides of me. The one I face everyone with but also… everything else going on inside. My thoughts. Things I can’t always control.” It’s an incredibly personal thing to share. And maybe it should be weird. They barely know one another. And yet, it feels seamless and right. Easy. And Eliott’s vulnerability makes Lucas want to share his own.

Lucas nods, his own interpretation of the painting having gone somewhere similar. “Yeah, I get it,” he admits, seeing Eliott turn back to him out of the corner of his eye. He keeps his own gaze on the face of the painted girl, her skin a riot of rainbow colour. “It reminds me of what it was like before I came out. Putting on a happy face but really…” He moves his arms to cross over his chest, rubbing up and down his arms, mimicking the comfort of another’s hands. “I was angry – so angry I had to be so fucking scared about it. So angry it had to be a big thing… and I didn’t know if everyone would be cool with it. It’s not the same but… I felt like that too… like I always had these two sides to me. Sometimes I feel like I still do.” He turns his head to see Eliott’s eyes on him, his expression gentle and understanding.

“Yeah.”

Lucas drops his eyes, before turning his head to look back down the dark corridor. Something about Eliott makes him feel more open and honest than he ever has before. It's disorienting, but sort of wonderful too. 

“So, uh…” He darts his eyes back to Eliott before looking away again. “What kinds of things do you paint then?”

Eliott moves towards him and Lucas’s heart stutters in his chest before realizing Eliott is merely motioning for them to continue down the hall. Lucas lets out a shaky breath and continues on as Eliott speaks.

“Honestly, I mostly just tag. I’ve done a few bigger pieces, but I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. Most of my art is still created in my studio at school.”

“You’re an artist then?” Of course he is, Lucas thinks, officially giving up on the thought that he’s anything but sincerely and truly fucked. Gorgeous, sweet, caring, cool, and an artist. _Of course_.

“Trying to be,” Eliott admits.

Another loud shout echoes through the hallway. Yann this time. It’s followed by a series of curses and more laughter.

“I'll be surprised if they’re all in one piece by the time we find them,” Lucas says with a slight laugh.

“Yann doesn’t mind you’re with me?”

The comment comes out of seemingly nowhere and Lucas looks over to Eliott in confusion. “Why would he mind?”

Eliott shrugs, biting his lip as he continues to stare down the hall instead of at Lucas. “Just… seems pretty protective of you.”

Lucas makes an amused sound, caught somewhere between a laugh and snort. “When’d you get that idea? When he left me stranded in the middle of a sea of drunk uni boys or…”

Eliott huffs a laugh. “No, just… I don’t know. You two seem close.” There’s a particular tone to Eliott’s voice… an implication. Lucas’s jaw drops.

“You think… me and Yann?!”

Eliott’s face splits into a wide smile and he laughs a little, finally meeting Lucas’s eyes, his own shining in the dim light provided from their phones. “I’ll take that as a no?”

“No!” Lucas denies loudly and perhaps a little too vehemently considering… “Or… I guess I had a thing for him as kids, but Yann is very much straight, and I am very much not.” He expects a laugh from Eliott in response. Instead Eliott looks surprised and… disgruntled?

“You had a crush on Yann?”

“That’s surprising? Yann’s hot.” Lucas isn’t totally sure what to make of this reaction. It can’t be jealousy. It’s more than clear that they want one another, but jealousy is hardly fitting considering the context. They only just met. And… this is a hook-up, or… a potential hook-up… a prospective good time spent together hardly suits the possessive emotions involved where something like jealousy is concerned.

“Yeah, but…” Eliott trails off, looking discomforted and maybe a little awkward with it. “I didn’t think he was your type.”

Lucas laughs, more amused with every passing second. “You know my type then?”

Eliott barely suppresses a smile, eyes sparking with amusement when he meets Lucas’s gaze. “Hoping so.” He scrunches his shoulders up to his ears, shoving his hands in his pockets as they continue to walk, making him seem far smaller and perhaps less confident than Lucas had at first assumed. Lucas pulls his lower lip into his mouth, looking back down the hall where finally he can see some sort of opening to a center space. “Anyways,” Eliott continues, “he’s not exactly like your ex, right?”

Lucas jerks his eyes back to him. Was that a comment or a question? Is Eliott asking based on assumption or… but no, Eliott doesn’t know a thing about Florent… or anyone Lucas has dated for that matter.

“What do you me–” He never finishes getting the question out. There’s suddenly a flurry of movement in front of them, faces and alarming yells.

Lucas shrieks, shrill and far louder than he would ever openly admit. One of the figures is grabbing for him and Lucas manages to flail his hand in its direction, catching it somewhere around the side of the head, before he recognizes the threatening figure as the very non-threatening Yann.

“Shit, Lucas!” Yann complains, slapping away Lucas’s assaulting hands. “You almost took off my head.”

“Gonna take off your dick too if you don’t watch it, Cazas!” Lucas yells, reaching to shove him back by the shoulders for good measure. “The hell is wrong with you?!”

“C’mon,” Yann laughs. “We were just having a little fun.” It’s only then Lucas notices all the other people surrounding them.

Arthur, Bas, and Daphne are to one side, Arthur and Bas engaged in some sort of battle to slap the other’s hat off with Daphne refereeing or trying to split them up, Lucas isn’t sure. Emma is hanging half over some sort of banister that splits to a lower level, and Manon and Idriss are to the other side – Idriss laughing and slapping Eliott on the back where he apparently recovers from his own scare. Manon looks on amused. When she catches Lucas’s gaze, he raises on eyebrow in accusation.

“You really just let this happen?”

She shrugs, teeth shining in the moonlight cutting through the dilapidated, broken building. “Better you than me.”

“C’mon,” Idriss suggests, swinging around with one last pat to Eliott’s face – though it more closely resembles a slap, “there’s some scary as fuck treatment rooms down in the basement we gotta show you.” He turns to grin at Manon, his expression likely meant to read as dare more than anything else. She grabs the hand offered in response, her free hand going to circle his forearm as she smiles with equal challenge, which is… an interesting development, Lucas notes with amusement. 

Lucas moves back to Eliott’s side as they watch the rest of their friends begin descending into the blackness of the basement beneath them.

“You’ve been here with Idriss before?”

Eliott turns to him to nod as they both move to follow. “Once. Urbex party.”

Lucas lowers his voice, moving closer to Eliott’s shoulder as they descent the staircase. “So, you know it well? The building I mean?”

Eliott’s eyebrows pull together as he looks back to Lucas. “I guess?”

Lucas nods, lips twitching up into a smile. “So… we could sneak off and get those fuckers back?”

Eliott’s face breaks into a delighted grin. “Oh yeah.” He quickly looks back towards their friends, making note of the direction they’re going before he grabs Lucas’s forearm, tugging gently and tilting his head towards a hall that splits to the side. “Stick with me.” It’s the same thing he’d said when rescuing Lucas from in the bar. And much like in the bar, Eliott’s hand slips down Lucas’s arm, linking their hands. Lucas doesn’t even know if Eliott does it with intention. The movement is smooth and natural. Like… they hold hands regularly… like this is a thing they do. It’s odder still because that’s exactly how it _does_ feel. Lucas grips Eliott’s hand tightly, letting himself be pulled into yet another pitch-black room. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this comfortable with someone before. Comfortable and… not. Comfortable like he never wants to let go of Eliott’s hand, like holding hands is the most natural thing in the world, but uncomfortable too, like there are sparks crawling up his arm from where their skin touches, and he wants to let go as much as he wants to grip even tighter… and he wants… more. So much more.

“Where are we going?” Lucas whispers, tripping slightly over the debris strewn ground and steadying himself with another hand gripped to Eliott’s bicep. Eliott has lowered the illumination of his phone – no doubt to prevent their friends from noticing them creeping around an entirely different area of the lower floor, but as such, it’s become a lot more challenging to make their way silently through the space. And if Lucas is honest, it’s a lot more creepy.

“This room loops back,” Eliott explains, whispering over his shoulder. “We’ll come out the other side. We’ll get them when Idriss leads them back.”

“Perfect,” Lucas agrees with a slight laugh. “Bet Bas screams louder than Daphne.”

Eliott snickers. “He’s the guy dressed as Mario?”

“That’s him.”

“Well you haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard Idriss scream.”

Lucas is sure Eliott didn’t mean that to be interpreted in any way but innocent, but…

“Dirty.”

Eliott makes a choked noise – a laugh caught before it finds proper sound. “Lucas!”

“What?” He grins brightly when Eliott turns to look back at him, projecting what he feels confident is the perfect mix of innocence and anything but. “I’m not the one who said it.”

Eliott makes an amused sound, squeezing Lucas’s hand in what Lucas is going to translate as appreciation. “Trouble,” Eliott whispers, and Lucas hums in agreement. “And for the record,” Eliott adds, “I have no knowledge of what Idriss sounds like in anything less than purely PG-rated contexts.”

Lucas snickers. “Boring.”

Eliott hushes him, pulling Lucas forward as they reach an opening at the back of the room. The once-doorway is partially obscured by a fallen beam. It’s still possible to maneuver around it but no doubt it will make their plan a lot more effective, as it’s highly unlikely their friends will expect anyone to be inside the blocked-off room.

“Boring maybe,” Eliott admits, releasing Lucas’s hand to pull him in front with two strong hands on Lucas’s waist, “but Idri and I have only ever been friends.” It takes Lucas a second to remember what they’re talking about – Lucas’s joke. Right. The joke about Eliott having intimate knowledge of Idriss’s ‘screams’. Yes. That. Eliott’s hands are warm and they haven’t moved from Lucas’s waist. Instead he’s positioned Lucas in front of him, facing out into the dark hallway, and placed himself behind. Eliott is standing so close Lucas can _feel_ the heat of his body – even through the thick fleece of his costume. “He’s not my type,” Eliott adds like an after-thought. The hood of Lucas’s costume ruffles slightly with his breath as his face brushes beside Lucas’s.

“I doubt that,” Lucas whispers, meaning for it to come out teasing, but the words are caught on an inhale, sounding husky and affected.

“Ok,” Eliott allows with a slight chuckle, that’s doing nothing to help the pace of Lucas’s heart, “he might have been. Once. A long time ago. Not so much anymore.”

“No?” Lucas’s voice wobbles precariously. “What is your type?” He sucks in a sharp breath at the feel of Eliott’s fingers brushing against the heat of his flushed cheek. Eliott has taken hold of the edge of the hood still hanging over Lucas’s head and he pushes it back. The material brushes against Lucas’s hair, disturbing it slightly, until it falls down to his neck. It’s just a hood and yet… ridiculously but all too acutely, it feels a lot like being undressed. Lucas doesn’t understand how such a simple act can be so… _so fucking hot_.

“Dunno,” Eliott hums, and the heat of his breath hits Lucas’s skin now. Eliott’s type. He’s talking about his type. You can do this, Lucas. Breathe. “Hot,” Eliott continues, turning his face until his lips brush the shell of Lucas’s ear. “Really fucking hot.” Lucas’s eyes flutter shut, and he instinctually leans back into Eliott’s chest, letting the rumble of Eliott’s words spread through his body. “Prickly,” Eliott’s hands squeeze Lucas’s sides, “but soft too.” Lucas’s lips twitch involuntarily into a smile as Eliott continues to speak. “And really, really…” He pauses, lips finding Lucas’s cheek and speaking the words against them. “Really short.”

Lucas’s eyes snap open. God, this _fucker_. Lucas has never wanted someone more in his life. He turns with a mumbled, "Shut up". Eliott’s smile is bright, his eyes alight with amusement. Lucas reaches for him. Eliott’s eyes widen with surprise for only the length of time it takes Lucas to weave hands through his hair, gripping tightly and pulling him down as Lucas pushes up onto his toes with lips parting. Eliott meets him halfway.

Lucas melts into it the moment their lips meet, thankful for the way one of Eliott’s arms wraps around his shoulders, holding him in place, the other cupping Lucas’s jaw to position him as Eliott wants him. They’re both too eager for any real finesse and their mouths come together with desperation better born of years separated or months denied, but it’s there all the same. _Need_.

Lucas runs a hand down Eliott’s chest, wrapping it around his waist to pull him closer, to press their bodies together as tightly as their mouths. Eliott responds with a pleased rumble from somewhere deep in his chest and chases Lucas’s tongue back into his mouth. His hand scrapes back into Lucas’s hair, tugging slightly at the messy strands as he slants their mouths together. The zipper of Lucas’s costume is digging uncomfortably into his chest where their bodies are pressed together, a biting sting, and it’s all suddenly not enough. Lucas needs more.

A whine, high-pitched and needy, escapes his lips when Eliott separates them to gasp for air, and Lucas surges to reconnect them, pushing Eliott backwards as he does so. Eliott stumbles slightly, keeping a tight grip to Lucas, a laugh rumbling between them. But he matches Lucas’s enthusiasm, kissing back with the sort of intensity Lucas had always assumed was reserved for others… couples… true love stories.

Eliott backs into a wall with a satisfying thump, allowing Lucas to align their bodies fully. He’s aided by the strong arm Eliott uses to wrap around his waist, hand sliding down to Lucas’s ass and gripping him there. Lucas surges up onto his toes and into Eliott at the touch. He couldn’t say exactly what his goal is. There’s nowhere to go, they’re pressed as closely as they can be with clothes separating them, and yet it’s not enough – not nearly. Eliott seems to understand his need, holding Lucas tightly and responding with the same fervor, when suddenly he’s moving away. Lucas pulls back more out of surprise than desire, only to realize it’s not Eliott moving, it’s the wall. There’s no time to react. There’s a loud cracking noise and Eliott is falling backwards, taking Lucas with him. Lucas is too surprised to even make a sound. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut as they tumble backwards, Eliott taking the brunt of the fall as Lucas lands on top of his body, face tucked tightly to his chest.

And yet… there’s screaming. High pitched screaming, long after Eliott and Lucas have landed with a crash. And… other sounds. Voices. Lucas lifts his head, pressing hands to Eliott’s chest as he raises himself to see…

Oh.

Their friends. He’d… maybe forgotten all about them.

“Bas!” Arthur yells, hitting the source of the screams. “Shut the fuck up! You’re blowing my aids out. It’s Lucas.”

“Lucas?” Bas squeaks, moving his light to flash directly in Lucas’s eyes.

“Fuck,” Lucas complains hoarsely, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he sits up further, “get that outta my eyes, Bas.”

Relieved of his temporary blindness when Bas swings the light away, Lucas can see Yann stands to one side, a hand pressed to his chest as though he too had received quite the scare. Daphne is at the back of the group clinging to Emma, her face a picture of terror. Alexia is on Emma’s other side, a smirk planted on her face. She’s probably the only one who doesn’t look particularly startled. But then, Alexia never did scare easy. Idriss and Manon complete the picture against the wall opposite of Yann. There are varying levels of surprise mixed with a good dose of fear on most of their friends’ faces.

Well, it wasn’t exactly as they intended but… damn, if that wasn’t an inadvertently effective move where their plan to scare their friends was concerned.

Lucas turns to look down at Eliott with a pleased grin, but it drops the moment he sees the grimace on Eliott’s face.

“Shit!” Lucas leans back over him, moving a hand to Eliott’s face before snatching it away, suddenly all too aware of the prying eyes surrounding them. He places it gently on Eliott’s shoulder instead. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?”

“I’m alright,” Eliott groans, sounding anything but. “Just never been quite this aware of every bone in my body before.”

Idriss’s voice comes from behind Lucas. “What exactly were you two doing?” Lucas doesn’t need to look back at him to see the suggestive smile on his face. He does anyways, twisting his upper body to face Idriss with a challenging eyebrow raised.

“Scaring you assholes. Which we did, I’d like to point out.” He turns back to grin at Eliott, who returns the smile this time.

“Yeah,” Idriss mumbles from behind him, voice laced with sarcasm, “Falling through a wall on top of one another was all part of the plan.” It’s only then it occurs to Lucas he’s still on top of Eliott… still… _straddling_ Eliott. Holy fuck.

“Oh.” It’s a meek puff of air, his eyes dart down to his hands spread on Eliott’s stomach and chest. “Fuck. I’m sorry – I’ll –” He makes a move to swing his leg off when Eliott’s hands are abruptly planted firmly at his hips, holding him in place. Lucas’s looks back to him in surprise.

“Just…” Eliott’s eyes quickly scan the faces of their unintended audience before falling back on Lucas, an adorably bashful look on his face. “In a second.” Comprehension comes to Lucas in a dizzying rush, leaving him light-headed and short of breath. Eliott is turned on. Eliott is _hard_. Lucas can feel him, pressed beneath his ass, hot… and big… and _hard_. Even after the fall - the shock. The knowledge is as impressive as it is dizzying. It takes all of his self-restraint not to grind down, not to give Eliott the contact he must desperately want, the friction they both need. Everything else fades to the background, insignificant and irrelevant compared to _this_ … Eliott between his legs.

“Alright,” Idriss speaks – _loudly_ , “let’s give ‘em a minute.” Lucas can hear him passing behind them, presumably with Manon in toe. The rest of their friends follow suit, some more reluctantly than others.

“Why?” Bas squawks. “Aren’t we gonna help?” He shines his light back on Lucas as he approaches, and Lucas squints uncomfortably. “You ok, Lulu?”

Arthur mumbles something unflattering in Bas’s direction as he passes, but it’s Yann who takes hold of Bas’s arm, hauling him along.

“Bas,” Yann hisses, one half amusement, one half complaint. “They’re fine. Move your ass!”

“I just wanted to see if he’s –” He cuts off with a yelp, tripping over a piece of the wall left scattered across the floor as Yann drags him away.

The girls follow and Lucas catches Alexia’s eye only for a split second before he diverts his own, feeling far too transparent to acknowledge the look he knows will be in her eyes.

He waits until their laughter and voices fade around a corner, their silhouettes swallowed by shadow, before he slips sideways off Eliott, kneeling at his side instead. He can’t help the way he immediately seeks out the shape of Eliott in the renewed dark, tripping over the buttons of his shirt stretched across his abs, and traveling lower still, to where he imagines Eliott straining against his pants. The shadows of their setting prevent him from confirming, but he imagines it still and finds himself sucking his lower lip into his mouth in the absence of something more satisfying.

“Fuck,” Eliott groans, sounding pained. Lucas’s eyes fly back to his face where Eliott has pressed his hands. “Stop looking at me like that.” The words are muffled but clear, and Lucas feels heat crawl up his neck to settle high in his cheeks.

“Like what?”

Eliott’s hands slide from his face, but he doesn’t answer the question. Instead he stares. His expression is… _raw_ , open and guileless. The intensity of it reverberates through Lucas, matching the frenetic beat of his heart and spreading heat on his skin. How is it possible to be the subject of a look like that? How is it possible that _Lucas_ is the subject of a look like that?

“Come home with me.” Lucas speaks before he’s given thought to the words rising in his throat. Eliott’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“You–”

“I mean,” Lucas begins once more, swallowing down the nerves that would gladly leave his voice unsteady. “Do you want to come home with me?” He pulls his lower lip back into his mouth, biting down on it harshly to prevent more words from spilling from his lips, to leave the offer there, naked and honest between them. Silence sits with it as they stare at one another, the only sounds the distant chatter of their friends.

“Yes,” Eliott finally answers, sitting up with arms propped behind him. There’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck yes.”

Lucas’s expression mirrors Eliott’s, a smile spreading across his own face. He’s never asked someone home – not like this. It’s always been an after-thought, a choice of convenience in a relationship already established. He’s never been so bold or decisive, not with someone like Eliott, not with someone he wants _this fucking much_.

“Ok.” Lucas hops up to his feet, if only to distract from the way he can’t stop smiling. He offers a hand to Eliott who takes it after a moment of consideration. Lucas has a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with Eliott doubting Lucas’s ability to pull up his _slightly_ larger frame, but generously chooses to ignore it.

Eliott doesn’t let go as he stands, pulling Lucas closer instead, his gaze steady and unwavering. Lucas’s eyes drop to his parted lips. There’s nothing he wants more than to sink back into Eliott’s body, to press their lips together once more and not let up – never let up. But there’s a prospect of a bed now. A bed and… more. Much more than mere kissing, however earth-shattering it had been. And Eliott said yes.

“C’mon,” Lucas breathes, voice unintentionally dropped back to a whisper, “let’s get out of here.” The sound of laughter and someone, most likely Emma shouting, echoes through the hall, and Lucas huffs a quick laugh. “We leave them too long, they’re gonna start plotting again.” 

Eliott exhales a sound like laughter. His thumb glides across the skin of Lucas’s hand once, twice, before he lets go. “Yeah,” he agrees, eyes skipping over Lucas’s face before landing on his hair. He reaches for the hood of Lucas’s onesie, pulling it back up to cover Lucas’s head. Lucas allows it, watching him curiously as he fusses, brushing hair back beneath the fleece. “To keep you warm,” Eliott explains when their eyes meet once more. The funny thing is, being around Eliott means Lucas really doesn’t think staying warm is going to be a problem. He seems to be afflicted with a permanent blush that heats his skin from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his toes, and he has no doubt it’s obvious to Eliott too. But Lucas likes it all the same, the gentle care and concern. It would perhaps be more fitting behaviour for a boyfriend than relative stranger, but it’s unfamiliar in the best possible way, and Lucas happily soaks up the attention, smiling to himself as he pulls the sleeves of his onesie down over his hands and follows Eliott back down the hall.

In what is turning out to be a night of constant surprises, their friends have managed to remain relatively unscathed in the time left alone. Even more surprisingly, they keep all unasked for commentary to themselves when Eliott and Lucas reappear, though Lucas is fairly sure that’s only because they’ve all managed to genuinely creep themselves out after Daphne had sworn she saw someone moving on the level up from them. Whether it was all in her head or not (Lucas is 100% going with it being in her head, he’s known Daphne for enough time to be well versed in her overactive imagination), he’s just as happy as everyone else to leave their urbex adventure behind.

“Eli!” Idriss calls out from the front of their pack as they all ascend the staircase. “Get your ass up here and lead the way out.”

Eliott scoffs, looking sideways to Lucas to roll his eyes before he calls back. “You just want me up front to sacrifice if there are ghouls lurking about.”

“Ghouls?” Lucas questions with a quiet snicker.

Eliott looks to him with a grin. “You’d be surprised. No place for a hedgehog.”

Lucas doesn’t get a chance to respond before Idriss is yelling back. “You know the fastest way outta this shithole. Being a sacrificial lamb is just a bonus.”

Eliott sighs, eyes settling back on Lucas before he answers. “You’ll be ok?”

Lucas can’t let such a question go without a dramatic roll of his eyes. “I did manage before meeting you. I’ll be fine.” As a matter of fact, Idriss’s request is a little more than ideal. Lucas needs a chance to ask Yann if he can bunk with one of the boys for the night and give Lucas the apartment, and doing so without Eliott at his side is much preferable. “Go,” he adds, shoving lightly at Eliott’s shoulder when it’s clear he’s stalling. “The faster we get out of here the faster…” He trails off, the implication clear but without the words to speak it aloud. He doesn’t need to, Eliott understands, face stretching into a smile laden with anticipation.

“Yeah.”

_“Eli!”_

“I’m coming!” Eliott shouts back, giving Lucas one final lingering look before he jogs up the rest of the stairs, taking two at a time until he’s at Idriss’s side at the landing.

The route Eliott chooses thankfully doesn’t have them weaving back through the building, but instead cuts out through the side of the open atrium space, leading to a staircase down from a large balcony. Lucas manages to sidle up behind Yann, but there’s no convenient time to speak to him with the group more closely huddled together as they descend the narrow staircase. It’s not until they reach the ground-level at the exterior of the building that opportunity presents itself.

Exiting at this side of the building has left them facing a solid brick wall to one side, and a chain-link fence on the other. Idriss and Eliott are currently in discussions – actual planning mixed with a fair bit of smack-talk – about which method will be best for getting off the grounds, and it’s looking like no one is going anywhere fast. Lucas edges up next to Yann, poking him lightly in the side.

“Hey.”

Yann doesn’t bother looking up from his phone as he answers. “Hey.”

Lucas bounces slightly on his feet, shoving his hands into the pockets of his costume as he glances around them. Idriss and Eliott look to be effectively distracted, and they’ve recruited Bas and Arthur into helping. The girls however stand far too close and Alexia’s attention has most certainly been drawn to Lucas, eyes falling on him with a curious raise of her eyebrow.

“Uh…” Lucas waffles, glancing around them for a more private spot to speak. His hesitation catches Yann’s attention who looks up from his phone, brows pulled together in concern.

“What’s up?”

“Just…” Lucas tilts his head towards the building they’ve just exited. There’s an open doorway on their level, the room beyond not looking too foreboding. It’s as good a spot as any. “Come check it out with me?”

Yann glances at the building before looking back to Lucas, skepticism written plain across his face. But there’s something to be said for being friends for so many years, and he doesn’t argue, nodding after a moment and gesturing for Lucas to lead the way.

A quick glance towards the girls confirms they’ve been distracted by a video Alexia is showing them on her phone that has Emma laughing and Daphne’s face bunched in horror. They’ll no doubt be kept busy for the time being.

The room Lucas and Yann enter is illuminated by moonlight scattered through the collapsed walls and few windows to the exterior of the building, making it not nearly as intimidating as the far darker depths of the building they’d only just seen. Lucas glances about curiously, noting the graffiti decorating the walls, none of it as interesting that which he’d seen with Eliott.

“Do you think you’d do it?” He asks, not having intended to, but finding himself curious. He looks back at Yann. “The whole urbex thing?”

Yann shrugs, glancing around them as they move farther into the room. “Don’t think I’d go outta my way to.”

Lucas nods, understanding the sentiment but not so sure he agrees. “It’s cool though, right?” He shrugs, gesturing to the room around them. “When else would we ever see a place like this?”

“Why would we want to?” Yann counters with a slight laugh.

“Yeah,” Lucas joins him in laughter.

“We actually exploring right now or was there a reason you pulled me back in here?”

Lucas looks back to him with a bashful smile. In all honesty, it’s a pretty simple request, one Yann has made of him on more than a few occasions, and yet everything about this situation feels wholly unfamiliar.

“Uh, no. I mean… there’s a reason.” Lucas bites his lip nervously. It shouldn’t be this awkward. Yann has never had any qualms in asking Lucas to make himself scarce when he’s bringing a girl back to their apartment. As a matter of fact, he’s always done so pretty unapologetically. But Lucas has never had to ask Yann. Any time he had stayed at their apartment with boyfriends, Yann had either stayed elsewhere of his own volition, or Lucas hadn’t seen the point in asking him to leave, the possibility of sex enthusiastic enough to warrant a need for an empty apartment, not particularly a consideration that had ever been at the forefront of Lucas’s mind… until now. “I was just wondering… like, if you wouldn’t mind… maybe Bas or Arthur would be cool with you staying?”

Yann stares at him blankly for an extended moment before his face breaks into a smile. He chuckles with a shake of his head. “That your way of telling me to fuck off tonight?”

Lucas exhales a laugh. “Yeah. Really, _really_ ineloquently, but… yeah. If you’re cool with it.”

Yann nods, but his smile dims slightly, a more serious look overtaking his face. “With Eliott?” He doesn’t clarify what he means by the question, but then, he doesn’t have to.

Lucas nods. “Yeah, he…” He bites his lip around a smile. “I already asked him.”

“And he’s down?” It sounds more rhetorical than a question expecting an answer but Lucas nods in confirmation anyways. Yann pauses, looking speculative. “You sure you want me gone? Not like you know the guy.”

Lucas’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “He’s Idriss’s friend. He’s not some random from a bar.” Which would be Yann’s regular hook-up of choice, Lucas generously doesn’t add.

“Yeah,” Yann agrees though he doesn’t look convinced.

“Yann,” Lucas says with an disbelieving laugh, “you’re the one always telling me to go for it. What’s the problem?”

“Dunno. Just…” He shrugs. “This isn’t really like you.”

“That’s the point,” Lucas laughs, incredulous and confused.

“I’m just saying,” Yann continues, though he’s smiling a little now, “this guy could be an actual psychopath for all we know.” Lucas snorts, the very thought of Eliott being dangerous in any respect, laughable at best.

“As long as the sex is good.”

Yann laughs. “Never thought I’d see the day you prioritized a fuck over safety.”

“Relax.” Lucas rolls his eyes with a huff. “Eliott wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Know him that well, do you?”

“I’m about to.” He adds a wiggle of his eyebrow for good measure.

“Jesus.” Yann shakes his head with another soft laugh. “Who are you?”

“I never do this, right?” Lucas says instead of acknowledging the question. “You’ve said it how many times? It’s always right into relationships I don’t even want with guys I barely even like.”

Yann arches an eyebrow as though surprised to hear Lucas admit this himself. “So, this is… what? Just a fuck?”

“Yes?!” Lucas exhales with a frustrated breath. “Is that ok?”

“Yeah,” Yann agrees, his tone implying he knows Lucas wasn’t actually asking for his approval. “Don’t believe you for a second, but yeah.”

“Doesn’t matter if you believe it. That’s what this is. Like you said – I don’t know him. I don’t have to.” The words sound far more callous and cold than he intends but he has a point to prove. “It’s a fucking hook-up, Yann. Nothing more. You should get that better than anyone.”

“Oohhh. Cheap shot.” He doesn’t look particularly offended despite his words.

“It’s sex, not...” Lucas searches for the right words, “a true love story. Relax.”

“That’s my line, bro,” he teases, but thankfully does look more relaxed. “Pretty sure I’ve been telling you to relax since first year.”

“Well, I’m planning to,” Lucas responds, adopting a cheeky smile when Yann laughs.

“Alright, alright. I’m done.” He waves a hand in front of himself as though he were a parent dismissing Lucas for the evening. “Lecture given. Be safe. Fuck to your heart’s content.”

Lucas mimes wiping a tear away. “Touched by the sentiment.”

“Shut up,” Yann laughs, cutting off when there’s a loud sound at the edge of the room, someone knocking over a beam at the side of the door.

“The fuck?!” Idriss says when they jump in surprise, turning to look at him. “What are you guys still doing here? Let’s move.” He says it like they’d already been told five times.

“You found a way out?” Lucas asks as they move to join Idriss at the door.

“Yeah?” The word lilts up like a question and Idriss’s eyebrows bunch together. “Didn’t he…? Whatever,” he shakes his head in dismissal, “I’ll show you the way. The others went ahead.”

Lucas’s eyes fly to him in surprise. “They did? Eliott did?” Maybe it’s a bit needy and a lot unfair for Lucas to have expected Eliott to wait for him, it’s just… well, it’s Eliott who set the expectation.

Idriss nods, turning to lead the way as they exit the building. “They’re at the fence.”

“Oh.”

It’s silly. Lucas just finished emphasizing the _lack_ of depth to this thing with Eliott. There’s no reason to feel like this about being left behind. Eliott probably just assumed they’d catch up. He didn’t know where Lucas was anyways. Granted… he could have just asked the girls, and it seems pretty clear he didn’t go to any effort to locate Lucas. But, well… whatever. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. This is why Yann always tells him to relax, to take things more casually. It’s not a big deal.

They reach the others after squeezing through a jaggedly cut piece of chain-link fence. Lucas immediately seeks out Eliott, finding him standing closer to the surrounding trees, nearly invisible as cast in shadows as he is. Lucas makes his way over to him with a tentative smile.

“You left me for the ghouls.”

“You were with Yann.” The words are oddly detached, and Eliott doesn’t look at him, instead moving to follow the others as they begin the walk across the rest of the surrounding property grounds.

“Uh… yeah.” Lucas honestly doesn’t know what to say in response to that. Discomfort niggles at his gut. Is Eliott annoyed? And what could possibly give him reason to be? Surely, he’s not… jealous? “Strictly PG-rated behaviour, don’t worry,” Lucas adds, his tone hopeful and teasing.

“I wasn’t.”

Ok, _what the hell?_ Eliott definitely sounds annoyed. Or at the very least, he’s not the flirty, banter-counterpart Lucas had last seen. Lucas doesn’t understand. What’s changed? Unless… it’s Eliott who’s changed. _Changed his mind_ , more specifically. Maybe he’s having second thoughts about coming home with Lucas and behaving in this manner is his way of letting Lucas down – his _shitty_ way of letting Lucas down. If that’s the case, the least he could do is say something. They’re adults. Lucas can take a little rejection. And sure, he doesn’t understand it, and the thought of being rejected at this point by Eliott leaves him feeling more than a little nauseous, but it’s better than the alternative. _This_. This painful, humiliating moment of not knowing.

Eliott’s pace quickens, his stride taking him away from Lucas and to Idriss’s side instead where the two begin to talk quietly. Lucas doesn’t give chase, hanging at the back of the group instead with slumped shoulders. What is he supposed to do? Surely Eliott will have to say _something._ They’re supposed to be going home together for fucks sake. Lucas focuses on the thrum of anger pulsing in his chest, but it’s overpowered by the sting of embarrassment. He only just asked Yann for their apartment, only just _bragged_ about exactly what his plans were for the evening.

But then… maybe Lucas is overreacting. He catches Eliott glancing back at him briefly before diverting his eyes and wonders if perhaps this is something else. Maybe Eliott is just nervous? In all his confusion and anxiety, Lucas has lost sight of his own nerves, but they remain all the same. Why should it be different for Eliott?

_God._

This is fucking stupid. He’s worked himself into a frenzy when next to nothing has happened. He’ll feel things out with Eliott when they get to the subway. Until then… he needs a distraction.

He jogs the few paces to put himself at Alexia’s side, shoving her gently to steal her attention away from some overly dramatic story being told by Daphne.

“Distract me.”

She turns to stare at him for a long, painfully extended moment, her eyes assessing and all too knowing. She seems to come to some sort of conclusion before she speaks, her tone relaxed and easy.

“Ok, so I’ve been thinking about Charlotte –”

“Charlotte?” He interrupts.

She sighs, throwing him a disgruntled look. “Hello? Cute girl in your lab? How are you supposed to talk me up to her if you don’t know her name?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I remember.” He most certainly did not. “What about her?”

And Alexia is off, rambling about some plan to win Charlotte over while simultaneously seeing if she’s into girls by showing up to Lucas’s class one day with a petition in regards to the universities treatment of LGBTQ+ clubs. It’s entertaining and wholly distracting. Lucas almost doesn’t think about Eliott.

Almost.

* * * *

“Hey.”

Lucas hadn’t yet worked up the courage to approach, when it’s Eliott inching up next to him on the subway with something resembling a smile, though missing it's former spark.

“Hey.” There’s resignation Lucas hadn’t meant to imbue in his tone but it feels appropriate all the same. He looks up to meet Eliott’s eyes meekly, feeling a lot like he’s about to receive the ‘But we can still be friends’ breakup speech – which is ridiculous, completely ridiculous, Lucas knows. And yet, here he stands, the subject of pitying eyes. What’s even more absurd is that Lucas has never been on the receiving end of such a conversation. It feels cruelly fitting that it would be now… when he actually _cares_.

Eliott leans back against the door Lucas had placed himself next to on the busy train. There’s a general din of noise surrounding them, drunken Halloween partygoers finding their way home, few of them with a reasonable sense of volume control. Lucas turns to face into the train alongside Eliott, leaning back against the door, but he can’t be bothered to feign interest in their surroundings, his eyes dropping down to his chest instead where he fiddles with the zipper of his costume.

“You get out around République with the others?”

Lucas looks to him in surprise, quickly snapping his mouth shut when he realizes it’s hanging open. He’s silent a moment too long and when Eliott turns to meet his eyes, Lucas rushes to answer.

“Uh – no. Or yeah, close. But Goncour.”

“Ok,” Eliott nods, turning his head away once more. Does this mean… is he asking because he’s intending on coming with Lucas? Lucas studies his profile. There’s a sharp set to his jaw, and that tension that had been present since they’d left the sanitorium remains. Lucas’s eyes fall to settle on a drop of fake blood staining the front of Eliott’s shirt.

“You don’t –” Lucas begins, his voice frail and uncertain. He clears his throat, projecting more clearly as Eliott turns back to him. “You don’t have to come. I know we said…” He looks up to find Eliott’s eyes resting on him, his expression unnervingly blank. “It doesn’t matter what we planned. I don’t want to do this with someone who isn’t into it.” His voice is satisfyingly steady, and he throws his shoulders back for extra measure, projecting the confidence that had deserted him in the face of Eliott’s rejection.

Eliott turns his face away for a moment and Lucas can see his chest rise with a deep inhale before he turns his body fully to face Lucas, shoulder pressed to the door.

“No, I – I want to.” His voice wavers.

Lucas scoffs, pulling on irritation to mask his embarrassment. “Real convincing. Listen, we’ll just call it a night.” He waves a hand between them as though he could brush away the connection he’d felt so vividly. “It was just a moment of insanity or whatever and –”

“Lucas,” Eliott cuts him off. His hands are suddenly at the front of Lucas’s onesie, pulling him closer. Lucas sucks in an unsteady breath, eyes widening when Eliott steps closer still, his breath warm against Lucas’s lips. “I want to. You have,” he cuts his eyes to the side and away, laughing slightly as though sharing an inside joke, “ _no idea_ how much I want to.”

“You do?” Lucas curses the betrayal of his own voice, too keen and far too transparent.

“Yeah.” Eliott smiles. He moves a hand to Lucas’s face, brushing his thumb against Lucas’s lower lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be… I just get into my own head sometimes…” His smile takes on a bashful quality. “You still want me to come? You’re allowed to change your mind too.”

“No,” Lucas responds, far too quickly. He can feel his cheeks flush with colour. “I mean, yes. I – I want you to. I really – yeah.” His face feels like it’s burning with heat and he drops his eyes, a little embarrassed to be so visibly eager.

Lucas’s eyes fly back up to Eliott’s face at the feel of fingers brushing across his cheek. Eliott hasn’t moved but he’s tilted his head down, putting their faces closer together. Lucas could just tilt back, press up on his toes, and connect their mouths. And, god, he wants to. He licks his lower lip, mouth parting as his eyes dart between Eliott’s darkening eyes and his mouth, plush and inviting.

Eliott moves his thumb to press down on Lucas's lower lip until his mouth parts further. He groans, the sound barely audible against the noise of the train car. “Fuck. Your mouth.”

A frisson of electricity rushes across Lucas’s skin, and with the sensation comes a surge of confidence. “You could.” Eliott’s thumb dips into his mouth when Lucas speaks. Lucas licks across the tip, shivering when Eliott rubs the saliva across his lip. 

“Could what?” Eliott asks, voice octaves deeper than it had been and laced with gravel.

Lucas drags his eyes away from Eliott to briefly take stock of the train car. They’re surrounded by people, but no one stands too closely, and their remaining friends are situated on the other side of the train. He brings his eyes back to Eliott, noting the way the colour has been swallowed by the black of his pupils. Lucas moves a hand to press against the harder muscle of Eliott’s stomach, relishing the way his touch makes Eliott suck in a harsh breath.

“Fuck my mouth,” he whispers but enunciates clearly, the words crisp and clear, laid bare between them. “You could.”

Eliott’s eyes widen before snapping shut, grimacing as though in pain. He falls forward until their foreheads knock together, and he rests his own there, breathing heavily. One of his hands moves to grip the front of Lucas’s costume, twisting and tightening in the fleece material as his eyes blink back open.

“God. I want –” He chokes on the word, swallowing heavily before beginning again, his voice a bare breath of a whisper. “I want to be inside you. Would you – would you want that to?”

Lucas’s reaction is instantaneous. His shivers violently, hand tightening in the fabric of Eliott’s shirt, his pulse beating a hot and heavy rhythm that centers itself in his balls. He cannot get hard in the middle of a train filled with people – no matter how drunk and distracted they may be.

“Yes,” he whispers, tilting his head to breath the words against Eliott’s lips. “Yes. Fuck. I want it.”

“Jesus.” Eliott pulls his head back. His eyes are wide and just a touch wild as he stares at Lucas. He licks his lips, glancing around them quickly before looking back to Lucas with a question. “When’s your stop?”

Lucas starts in surprise. He honestly has no idea. Has it been only a few minutes or more? The concept of time suddenly seems distant and obscure. He scans the train car, finding Daphne and Bas sitting together in one of the far benches.

“Probably soon,” Lucas says in response, nodding his head slightly in the direction of the couple. “Daphy and Bas get off at the same stop.” It occurs to Lucas just how unfortunate that is. The last thing he wants to deal with is Daphne’s knowing looks and Bas’s inappropriate questions when they leave the subway with Eliott and Lucas in tow. “Fuck,” he breathes, eyes trailing to his friends and back. “I didn’t think of that.” He doesn’t explain what he means but judging by the twist in Eliott’s mouth and the contemplative way he too is looking towards their friends, he’s followed Lucas’s line of thought. The train pulls up at a station and Lucas makes note of the stop. “We’re next.”

“Let’s run.”

Lucas looks back to Eliott in surprise. “What?”

A secretive smile grows on Eliott’s face and he bounces an eyebrow in suggestion. Lucas’s mouth twitches up into a slight smile and it seems to be answer enough for Eliott, who immediately grabs his hand, dragging him to the other side of the train, and squeezing between the collected people until they stand in front of the doors.

He looks over at Lucas, linking their fingers in a tight grip, his eyes lit with delight. “Ready?”

Lucas squeezes his hand just as tightly, smile growing as the train slows approaching their stop.

“Ready.”

They run.

* * * *

“Fuck,” Eliott gasps, leaning forward with hands to his thighs as he attempts to catch his breath while Lucas fishes out his keys and opens the door to his apartment.

Lucas laughs, looking back at Eliott with a grin as he twists the key in the lock. “What good are those long legs if you can’t keep up with me?”

“Can keep up with you just fine,” Eliott complains, his breathing still coming hard and fast.

“See. Some benefits to being _slightly_ smaller than you. I’m fast,” Lucas says as he opens the door, moving to switch the light on.

“A lot of benefits,” Eliott agrees, pressing against Lucas’s back, the heat of his body instant and consuming. He drops his head until he can press a kiss to Lucas’s cheek.

“Like what?” Lucas breathes, spinning in Eliott’s arms and backing them further into the apartment, letting the door slam shut behind them. He glides his hands along Eliott’s stomach, up until he reaches his chest, holding there as he backs up.

Eliott’s hands are tight at Lucas’s waist and he follows, eyes dark with intent, until Lucas pauses, standing in the middle of the entrance space, neither the kitchen nor the living room but a strange space in between. When suddenly Eliott’s stooping, hands sliding down to catch at the back of Lucas’s thighs before he lifts. Lucas doesn’t have a chance to react, but then… he doesn’t need to. His body responds instantly and instinctually. His arms move to wrap tightly around Eliott’s neck, and then he’s situated with legs wrapped around Eliott’s waist, Eliott’s hands cupping his ass to hold him in place.

Eliott smirks, looking (deservedly) cocky about their current position. “Not sure I could do that with a guy bigger than me.”

Lucas stares down at him, out of breath and so immediately turned on, he doubts his ability to talk at all. “Oh yeah?” The words come soft and slow, and he licks his lips before continuing. “Gonna fuck me like this then?”

Eliott’s hands shift on him, his hold faltering before tightening once more. Lucas tries not to let his smug pleasure show. “Maybe.”

Lucas hums, sounding more amused than accepting. He tightens his thighs around Eliott and lifts, sliding his body up before grinding back down. He means to sexually tease Eliott with the move, but finds his own eyes fluttering at the sensation. “Could ride you like this,” he breathes, rising up once more and watching the way Eliott’s eyes track him, looking like someone tethered to self-control by only the barest, fraying thread.

Lucas can imagine it – too vividly, as he moves in subtle shifts against Eliott’s body: Eliott’s hands tight to his ass, holding him open as he drives his cock up into Lucas’s body, the sound it would make, the wet slap of skin against skin, the way Lucas would have to hold on, nails scratching at Eliott’s shoulders and neck as he bounced on Eliott’s cock, but it wouldn’t be enough, he’d need more of Eliott inside him, and he’d pull them tighter together, whine that he needed more, cry out as Eliott flexed his thighs, fucking up into his body, harder, faster, driving them closer and closer to the release they both so desperately craved, even as they never wanted it to end.

“Eliott,” Lucas whispers, and drops forward and down, finding Eliott’s lips and nipping at the swell before surrendering to a deep kiss.

They’re moving, though Lucas can’t be bothered to pay Eliott’s steps any mind, not when he’s being kissed like this, hungry and desperate. It’s only as Lucas’s back hits the wall leading to the living room, that they allow their mouths to part, staring at one another with wide eyes. Eliott’s hands loosen, gliding along Lucas’s thighs and allowing Lucas to drop his feet back to the floor.

“Will you fuck me like this?” Lucas doesn’t know where the question comes from, nor the confidence that asking in all seriousness requires. But he can’t help himself, certainly not when it results in that look overcoming Eliott’s face, like he’s already buried deep inside Lucas, on the cusp of orgasm.

“Against the wall?” Eliott swallows heavily, his hands opening and closing against Lucas’s hips in a restless sort of rhythm.

“Like – like before,” Lucas manages to get out, voice tight with anticipation. “Holding me up.”

“Fuck,” Eliott falls forward, burying his face in Lucas’s neck as he breathes. Lucas shudders at the feel of warm breath against his neck and moves hands to drag through the tangled strands of Eliott’s hair. “I can try.” Eliott smears the words against his skin, raising his head to look at Lucas once more, eyes hazy and unfocused.

The words unwittingly bring a slight smile to Lucas’s face. “Try?” He teases, tugging lightly at Eliott’s hair. “Figured you could do better than that.”

Eliott’s hand moves to weave through Lucas’s hair, leaning forward until the tips of their noses brush together in a gentle semblance of a kiss. Despite the softness of the gesture, his words are anything but. “You have no idea how hard I’m going to fuck you.”

The words rush through Lucas’s body until they reach his cock, and it throbs with the pleasure of them. He expels a heavy breath before pushing Eliott back, shoving at his shoulders with one hand and reaching for the zipper of his costume with the other. “Bathroom. Condoms. Lube. In the – in the bottom drawer.” It’s his untouched stash but having Eliott retrieve the near empty bottle of lube at the side of Lucas’s bed, holds little appeal.

“I’ll – I should get them?” Eliott’s sentence lilts up, caught between a statement and question. Lucas nods. He’d go himself but he’s genuinely a little concerned that should he try to walk, his legs will give out.

“End of the hall.”

Eliott nods. His hand tightens in Lucas’s hair before releasing, and he turns, hurrying down the dark hallway until Lucas sees the bathroom light come on, and Eliott disappears behind the door. Lucas rushes to strip himself of his costume, letting it drop to the floor beneath his feet and quickly kicking it away. He hesitates only briefly before reaching for the waistband of the shorts he wears and rids himself of those as well. He leaves his briefs on, not looking to test the limits of his confidence by baring himself entirely to Eliott just yet, and instead reaches for the bottom of his t-shirt, more than happy to strip himself of the sweat-stained material.

The door to the bathroom reopens just as Lucas is surreptitiously sniffing his armpits, thankful to discover he mostly smells of the deodorant he’d stolen from Yann before dressing for the Halloween party – a mix of spices, no doubt meant to resemble something ‘manly’ but only making Lucas think of nights spent in front of a roaring fire on cold winter nights, cuddled under blankets.

Eliott freezes as he reaches the edge of the room, staring at Lucas across from him. He’s taken the time to wash the remaining makeup from his face, and his hair is damp and brushed back, his skin clear.

“Shit,” Lucas groans, pressing hands back into the wall at his sides and baring his body more completely, “you’re so fucking hot.” It’s not like it was any less apparent when Eliott was in full vampire-mode but still… _whoa_.

Eliott’s moving. He drops the condoms and lube at their feet. Reaching for the buttons of his shirt with frantic hands. He’s pulling it over his head when Lucas drops to his knees, reaching for Eliott’s pants and making quick work of his button and fly. He hears Eliott curse when he realizes Lucas’s intent, hand immediately seeking out Lucas’s head, fingers weaving through the strands, as he allows Lucas to wrench his pants and briefs down in one harsh movement. Eliott shuffles on his feet, struggling to kick the items away, and his cock bobs in front of Lucas’s face, big… and hard… and…

Lucas leans forward to take the tip into his mouth, and Eliott’s movements freeze with an exhaled, “Fuck”, and tightening of his hand in Lucas’s hair. Lucas sweeps his tongue over the tip, collecting the precum there before he widens his mouth and sucks the head of Eliott’s cock into his mouth. He brings a hand to the base, gripping firmly, as he sinks lower. He closes his eyes, relishing the weight of Eliott’s cock on his tongue.

He’s always liked this, the feeling of dick in his mouth, the way he feels so in control of another person’s pleasure. He’s always gotten off on it. Even with Florent, when sex with his ex-boyfriend had been little more than a chore Lucas felt obligated to participate in, he’d loved this – loved going down on him, feeling a man’s cock swell in his mouth as Lucas drove him closer and closer to the precipice. There were times when Florent had never even needed to get a hand on Lucas – in truth, Lucas had preferred it that way, stars bursting beneath his eyelids as orgasm had rolled through him and he’d choked on Florent’s dick. And yet, it had never felt quite like this, quite this intense, because Lucas had never wanted it quite this much. He wants Eliott to fuck deep into his throat, he wants to feel Eliott’s cock filling every part of him, and he wants Eliott to come, filling Lucas with the taste of him, knowing it’s _because_ of him – because of Lucas.

Lucas pushes his other hand into his own briefs, taking hold of his aching erection as he rises up on Eliott’s dick before sinking even lower, until he can feel the head of Eliott’s cock testing the limits of his gag reflex.

“Yeah,” Eliott groans, widening his stance and bringing his other hand to Lucas’s cheek, his thumb sweeping across soft skin where it’s stretched to accommodate the girth of his cock inside Lucas’s mouth. “Take it so well,” he slurs, sounding drunk off his own pleasure. Both hands have found their way to Lucas’s head now. Grip tight, he shoves deeper into Lucas’s mouth, making a choked sound when Lucas compulsively swallows around him. Lucas sweeps his hand over Eliott’s hip until he can reach back, cupping one cheek of Eliott’s ass and pulling him deeper still. His other hand tightens at the base of his own cock, desperate to slow the build of his orgasm. “Want it, don’t you?” Eliott slurs, partially pulling from Lucas’s mouth before shoving back in. “ _Fuck_. Want me to fuck your mouth.” It’s not a question, not really. Eliott knows the answer – knows it’s true.

Lucas blinks open watery eyes, inhaling sharply through his nose, and tilts his head back, simultaneously allowing Eliott to drive deeper into his throat, while allowing Lucas to look up – to find the dark eyes fixed on him as he swallows.

“Shit,” Eliott gasps, and he’s abruptly wrenching his hips back, hauling Lucas up from his knees with a near painful grip to his hair, and connecting their mouths.

The kiss is hard and messy. He scrapes teeth over Lucas’s lower lip, tugging at the flesh, before pressing his tongue into Lucas’s mouth with a satisfied groan. His hand moves down, ripping his mouth away the moment he encircles Lucas’s cock in a warm fist, and Lucas is thankful for the reprieve, nails digging into Eliott’s shoulders with a pleased moan as Eliott’s hand tugs his painfully hard erection.

“Eliott,” Lucas keens, “please. I –”

Eliott’s hand releases, and he drops down to a crouch, taking Lucas’s briefs with him as he goes and retrieving the condom and lube. He quickly rises back to a stand, slapping an unopened condom onto the small table beside them which normally houses apartment keys and mail, and bending his head to go about opening the lube. He makes a frustrated sound, his movements stilted and barely controlled, when he realizes the bottle hasn’t yet been opened.

Lucas snickers, leaning back against the wall and jutting his hips out as he waits.

Eliott glances up from beneath his eyelashes as he uses his teeth to rip away the seal of the bottle. His mouth quirks at one corner but the intensity of his eyes speaks to a different emotion, it’s a warring battle between amusement and… something else… something that has butterflies erupting into flight in Lucas’s stomach, not quite nerves but… something more.

Bottle now open, Eliott slicks up the fingers of one hand, dropping the lube back to their feet when he’s finished. “Spread your legs.”

Lucas swallows, his throat suddenly parched with thirst. “You want – you want me to turn around?” They’re not touching and yet it feels as though he’s already got Eliott’s fingers inside him, pressing deeply into his body as he’s prepared for Eliott’s cock.

“No.” Eliott shakes his head, voice deeper than Lucas has heard it. “No, I want to look at you.” He’s suddenly sweeping an arm down, wrapping it beneath Lucas’s thighs and lifting as he presses their lips together in a kiss that begins open-mouthed and desperate.

Lucas should have been prepared for the move by now, and yet his mouth drops open around a surprised gasp, legs automatically tightening around Eliott’s waist. He grinds in infinitesimal movements against Eliott’s abs and lets him dominate the kiss, pressing Lucas firmly to the wall.

Eliott’s hand slips around his hip, a slick finger pressing to Lucas’s hole and surging up and into him before Lucas is even aware of its intent. He breaks from the kiss with a loud moan, the muscles of his ass reflexively tightening around the digit.

“That’s it,” Eliott encourages, pressing deeper as Lucas’s body relaxes to accommodate the intrusion. “That’s it. Sssshhhh.” It’s a gentling command rather than encouragement to be quiet, and it has the effect, soothing Lucas as Eliott moves his finger in and out of his body. “God, you feel good. Just like this.” Eliott speaks the words into Lucas’s mouth, pressing another wet kiss there, before pulling back to watch Lucas’s face.

Lucas stares at him from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, mouth dropped open around his increasingly laboured breathing. Should it feel this good? Just a finger? Should it feel this _much_?

“More,” Lucas moans, shifting to try to force Eliott’s finger deeper, but finding he doesn’t have much leverage, pressed as tightly to the wall as he is. He squirms anyhow, whining in complaint when it only makes Eliott laugh, a low, sexy rumble that has Lucas’s ass clenching down tightly around his finger.

“Gonna get a lot more,” Eliott agrees, but finally – _finally_ presses another finger in alongside his first. The stretch burns for only a moment before a different feeling replaces it, something like satisfaction but the word doesn’t encapsulate the feeling in its entirety. Lucas feels… full. That’s it. Full. Like an empty space inside him has been filled. He never wants it to end – never wants to be without Eliott inside him. It’s a silly thought. Even in the throws of pleasure, Lucas knows it. But it’s there all the same. A new need. A need Lucas knows won’t ever be satisfied without Eliott.

“Yeah,” Lucas breathes around a moan, throwing his head back and relishing the stretch as Eliott opens him up. “Yeah. More.”

Eliott curses, mouth moving to the side of Lucas’s face and biting down lightly against his jaw. There’s a third finger squeezing beside the others, testing the resistance of Lucas’s body before pressing in with more force than Eliott had used with the others.

“Hungh!” Lucas grunts, squeezing his eyes shut and concentrating on relaxing his body. It hurts a little but… the discomfort isn’t bad. He bites his lip as Eliott pushes deeper, focusing on that feeling of fullness that comes with the stretch, balanced on a precipice between pleasure and pain.

“You have no idea,” Eliott speaks, voice strained, “no idea how good you look.”

Lucas’s eyes snap open and he focuses on Eliott’s face. The fingers moving inside him are relentless, gliding slickly in and out of his body. And it’s starting to feel really good now, finding the side of pleasure in a sure, inevitable fall. He makes a small sound, a request, a need to know what Eliott means. Words won’t form but Eliott understands him despite the absence of them.

“You were made for it,” Eliott says, out of breath and overcome. “Made for me. Made to take my fingers. My cock. _Fuck_.” He presses a kiss to Lucas’s cheekbone, words slow and slurred. “Gonna ruin you. Ruin you for anyone else.”

The words strike a bolt of fear through Lucas’s chest, but it’s accompanied by an opposing sense of calm. The two battle and settle, a spreading warmth overtaking him as he realizes he wants it – Eliott. All of it. ‘Ruin me’ he wants to whisper into Eliott’s lips, ‘I didn’t think it would ever be like this. Not for me. Ruin me. I won’t regret it.’ Instead all he’s able to do is moan a broken series of words – pleas.

“Please – need – Eliott – _please_.”

Eliott pulls his fingers from Lucas’s body, leaving an aching emptiness in their wake, and reaches for the condom on the side table. He rips it open with his teeth as Lucas watches with keen eyes, reaching down to slide it down his erection, hard and red and suddenly looking much bigger than when Lucas had it in his mouth. The hair on the back of Lucas’s neck stands on end at the thought of it inside him, filling him. He wants it. He’s never wanted anything more.

The arm Eliott uses to hold Lucas steady to the wall slips slightly against overheated, sweat-slick skin, and Eliott readjusts, shifting him higher. Lucas presses up from Eliott’s shoulders, tilting his hips forward with a pitiful sound, desperate to feel the blunt head of Eliott’s cock stretching him.

“Shit,” Eliott breathes, holding Lucas’s body steady as he directs the head of his cock to Lucas’s stretched, slick hole and begins to press in. “Shit. Fuck,” he groans, eyes snapping shut before opening again just as quickly, as though torn between wanting to let himself sink into the sensation, and the need to keep his eyes on Lucas. “Gonna ruin _me,_ ” he breathes, and pushes the head of his cock in, breaching the barrier and stretching Lucas’s body to limits beyond the width of his three fingers. He freezes there, panting harshly as they both adjust to the feeling.

Lucas’s hands scrabble against Eliott’s shoulders, looking for purchase or relief where he finds none. He bites his lip and stares wide-eyed at Eliott, who looks back with the same awe filling his eyes Lucas is sure his own reflect back.

“Eli –”

Eliott’s arm slips, his purchase on Lucas’s ass lost to the sweat slicking every expanse of Lucas’s skin, and his cock thrusts up and into Lucas’s body in one, harsh, fluid movement. Or maybe it’s Lucas who involuntarily drives his body down. Lucas doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. The consequence is the same.

Lucas cries out, his back arching wildly as he throws his head back, squeezing his eyes shut against the onslaught of sensation. Eliott’s hips jerk up, driving him deeper, as though by uncontrollable impulse, and he cries out just as loudly, shock mixed with the same layers of pleasure Lucas feels coursing through his veins.

“Oh g – god,” Eliott stutters, renewing his purchase of Lucas and steadying himself, buried deep inside Lucas’s body. “Oh god. Are you –” His hips jolt as Lucas’s body clamps around him, squeezing his cock as though to drag him deeper. “ _Fuck_.” He buries his face in Lucas’s neck, biting the tendon straining there before he attempts to speak once more. “Are you ok?”

“Yes,” Lucas breathes, surprised by the way the word comes out so clearly – at the way he means it. “Yes.” He opens his eyes, tilting his head back to look down at Eliott and shifting his body with a low groan. “Fuck me,” he whispers, then louder, “Fuck me. Hard.”

Eliott’s body freezes, his breath halted in his throat and eyes wide, until the tension is released with one violent shudder and he’s squeezing his eyes shut, grip holding Lucas in place as he pulls his cock from Lucas’s body, leaving just the tip tugging at Lucas’s hole before he fucks back in, pelvic bone slapping against the meat of Lucas’s ass.

“ _Ungh_ ,” Lucas grunts, eyes wide and locked on Eliott, fingernails biting into his shoulders. “Again.”

Eliott does it again. And _again_. Each time feeling, impossibly, like he’s pushing deeper, finding places in Lucas’s body he wasn’t aware were there – wasn’t aware he needed Eliott to fill. Lucas is making noises, desperate pleas mixed with moans, surrendered to the sensations coursing through him.

Lucas’s legs loosen. Lost to the bliss of having Eliott inside him, they feel suddenly weak. They slip at Eliott’s sides and his body is held in position only by the strong arm Eliott’s uses to hold him steady to the wall, fucking into him in a brutal, unrelenting pace. The knowledge inexplicably makes the sensations even more intense. It makes Lucas feel wild with pleasure – cared for and desired. His body slides against the wall with every thrust of Eliott’s inside him, fucked harder and harder against the surface as Eliott chases his orgasm.

Eliott is making sounds, grunts of gratification mixed with words. He falls forward, whispering them into Lucas’s skin – his ear, his neck, his jaw – as his pace grows rougher, broken and desperate.

“So good – best – _ungh_ – Lucas – want – so long.”

None of it makes any sense. None of it needs to. The sound of his voice is all Lucas needs. Eliott.

“Yes,” Lucas whispers back, holding Eliott tightly to him as he feels his pleasure begin to crest, collecting low in his dick where it’s pressed between them, grinding against Eliott’s abs. “Yes. _Please_.” The rest of his words are lost to a moan and he throws his head back, letting the feeling spread through his body until it’s too much, until he needs to let it overwhelm him, needs to surrender to pleasure he’s never felt – not like this. “I’m going – oh god – I’m going to –” But suddenly Eliott’s pulling back – pulling _out_ – panting as he slides an arm up Lucas’s back, dropping his legs to the floor beneath them. “ _No_!” Lucas wails. Frenzied and desperate for the release he was deprived of, he grabs for Eliott only to have his hands captured and held tightly by the very person denying him what he wants - _needs_. “Plea–” He doesn’t finish the plea. Eliott’s hands move to his hips, tugging him towards the living room before abruptly spinning him, turning Lucas to face away from him and pushing him over the armrest of the couch with a firm hand to his back. Lucas sucks in a sharp, startled breath, so turned on by the action he can feel his cock blurt a dribble of precum which drips to the couch beneath him.

“Is this – this ok?” Eliott pants, hands already tight on Lucas’s ass where he spreads his cheeks, thumb dipping into his body.

“Yes,” Lucas answers immediately, a moan formed word. “God. Yes. Just – please.”

Eliott slams into his body with a hitched breath. The new position drives him deeper – _so much deeper_ – than he’d been before. Lucas chokes on air as he desperately tries to fill his lungs, reaching for a cushion and pulling it towards himself with a garbled wail. The sounds they’re making are obscene, wild and untethered. Lucas doesn’t muffle himself and neither does Eliott.

Eliott has taken Lucas at his word and pounds into his ass in earnest. As though he’d previously been holding back, or perhaps unable to fully let go due to their precarious position against the wall, he lets loose now. Lucas is held in place only by Eliott’s strong hold of his hips and the arm of the couch, which shudders with each thrust into his body.

He’s never been fucked like this – didn’t know it was possible to be fucked like this – this good, this _much_. Eliott fucks with the same intensity he speaks, like he wants to ruin Lucas, like he knows he already has.

Eliott’s hands slip, his position changing, when suddenly the angle is sending a different spark of pleasure up Lucas’s spine. The sound Lucas releases is inhuman, an unchecked release of pleasure unlike anything he has ever known. He lets out a sob, biting down into the pillow beneath him until the pleasure is near unbearable, and he lets it take him.

His cock pulses beneath him, sending ribbons of come to the couch below. It feels like being ripped apart at the seams, each thrust of Eliott’s cock into his body extending his pleasure to a point of near pain, and he sobs once more, a pitiful sound wept into the pillow beneath him. His body melts down into the couch as his orgasm drains from him and he can feel Eliott’s pace falter.

“No,” he gasps in a hoarse whisper, turning his face so Eliott will better hear him. “Don’t stop. Harder.” He needs it. Needs Eliott to come inside him as badly as he needed his own release.

It’s all the encouragement Eliott needs. His hands tighten on Lucas’s hips, pinning him against the arm rest and he pounds into Lucas mercilessly.

“Fuck.” He’s close, his voice strained with the pleasure of his approaching orgasm. Lucas could scream from the oversensitivity, but he doesn’t, whining down into the cushion beneath him instead. “Take it so well,” Eliott gasps, and then he’s grinding into Lucas and coming. One hand moves to Lucas’s shoulder, holding him back and in place as Eliott spills inside him. He releases a broken moan, jerking and shuddering as Lucas’s body milks his pleasure. He rests a hand to Lucas’s lower back as he pants, the weight of his body pressing Lucas, sated and boneless now, more deeply into the fabric of the couch. “Holy fuck.” It’s barely words, awe mixed into the breath he releases as he lifts his weight, gently pulling his spent cock from Lucas’s body. Lucas whines at the loss, rubbing his face down into the pillow he still clutches to his body. “Here.” Eliott’s hands are at Lucas’s waist, attempting to lift him. Lucas squirms out of his hold. Pushing himself over the armrest and fully onto the couch instead, he flips over onto this back. Eliott chuckles at the sight of him, standing at the end of the couch, used condom in one hand, his softening dick hanging swollen and red between his thighs. He’s beautiful.

“What?” Lucas whispers, not entirely surprised to realize his voice is completely shot, an unattractive croak if nothing else.

“You looked fucked.” Eliott looks more than a little smug about that but Lucas can’t say it’s not deserved.

“I am fucked.”

Eliott snorts. He leans to dispose of the condom in a nearby waste bin, his eyes dropping to the mess Lucas has left on the arm and cushion of the couch. “Shit.” He grimaces. “Should probably clean that up.”

“Later,” Lucas dismisses with a wave of his hand, reaching up with it until Eliott takes the hint, clasping it tightly and pulling Lucas to a stand. Lucas wobbles precariously, pressing steadying hands to Eliott’s chest as he grins. “Bed now. While I can still walk.”

Eliott’s face transforms with concern, hands moving to hold tightly to Lucas’s waist. “Are you ok? Was I too rough?”

Lucas rolls his eyes to distract from the way his pleasure at Eliott’s concern is no doubt glowing from his skin. “I’m fine. Probably gonna walk with a limp tomorrow but…” He bites his lip around a smile. “It was really good.”

“Yeah,” Eliott agrees, voice gentled as his thumbs brush softly against Lucas’s waist. “It was.”

Lucas skin heats at Eliott’s touch and it’s with startling clarity he realizes… he still wants Eliott. If it weren’t for the limits of his body and the fact that his ass feels like it’s going to need more than a night to recover, he’s be suggesting they go for round two.

Perhaps less surprising a revelation is the awareness that Lucas doesn’t want it to end – not just the sex but… being with Eliott. It’s a feeling that perhaps had been building from the moment he saw Eliott in the bar – a feeling Lucas was well aware of despite his words to Yann. It’s that desire for… more. It’s not a scary prospect. If anything, Lucas would call it exciting. It’s… possibility. The chance to experience more _with_ Eliott. Lucas wants it – wants to actively _choose_ it. For the very first time.

“Bed,” he repeats, softer this time. He takes Eliott’s hand, leading them both towards the hall and the direction of his bedroom.

“You want me to stay?” Eliott asks after a moment, hand loose in Lucas’s hold.

Lucas looks back over his shoulder with mild surprise. “Yeah?” Perhaps this is etiquette when having sex with someone you only just met. Lucas would hardly know. His room is illuminated by the lights of the road outside and he doesn’t bother to pull his curtains. He drops Eliott’s hand as they walk into his room, turning around as he reaches the edge of his bed. “It’s the middle of the night,” he explains, his tone teasing. “I’m polite. Won’t kick you out until morning.”

“Yeah.” Eliott’s eyes drop, his hand moving across his chest to rub at the bicep of his other arm. He doesn’t respond at all to the humour in Lucas’s comment.

“I’m just – I’m joking,” Lucas clarifies quickly, abruptly feeling wildly off balance. “I’m not going to kick you out, I –”

“Lucas,” Eliott cuts him off, glancing up at him with a small smile. Lucas relaxes at the sight of it. “It’s fine. I got it. Relax.”

Lucas snorts, turning to pull back the bed sheets and crawl in, moving to one side to make room for Eliott. “I’m relaxed. Believe me.”

Eliott grins, his smile more genuine this time as he follows Lucas into the bed. “Is that right?” They both settle on their sides facing one another.

“Mmhmm,” Lucas agrees, pressing his smile into the arm he curls beneath him. “Had a little help.”

“Hm. Someone I know?” Eliott settles a hand between them on the mattress and Lucas has to resist the urge to reach for it, to pull it to his chest.

“Probably not.”

Eliott expels a soft laugh. “No?”

“No,” Lucas says feeling silly, drunk on the endorphins of truly spectacular sex. “Just some loser vampire.”

Eliott laughs again, louder this time. “Oh that’s how it is, hunh?”

“That’s how it is.”

“Well I think being a vampire immediately excludes someone from being a loser. Vampires are cool. Those are the rules.”

Lucas snickers, twisting his hands in his pillow to stop himself from reaching out to touch. “Don’t think so.”

“No?” There’s a smile stretched on Eliott’s face and it gentles as his eyes track across Lucas’s features. “Could’ve been worse.”

“Worse how?” Lucas asks with a disbelieving scoff.

“Could’a been a hedgehog.”

“Shut up!” Lucas laughs, squirming against the mattress, feeling a lot like his happiness were about to burst from his skin. “You loved my costume.”

“Yeah,” Eliott agrees, “but I wanted to sleep with you. I can’t be trusted.”

“Nah,” Lucas denies with a happy sound. “You loved it.”

Eliott hums, letting silence rest between them for a moment before he answers. “Maybe.”

Lucas’s blinks slow as he stares at Eliott, wanting to give into the sleep luring him under, but just as desperately wanting to continue looking at Eliott.

“Hey, Eliott.”

Eliott hums in inquiry, sleep thick in the sound.

“Did you know hedgehogs have bad eyesight?”

Eliott’s eyes blink back open, focusing on Lucas. “They do?”

Lucas nods. “Yeah. It’s better at night.”

“Mmm.” Eliott’s eyes stay on him for another extended moment before he speaks. “What if you can’t see me in the morning?”

Lucas snickers. “I’ll assume the sunlight got you. Didn’t close those curtains for a reason.”

Eliott laughs, soft and heavy with fatigue. “Yeah.”

It’s the last thing Lucas remembers before sleep claims him.

* * * *

When Lucas wakes it’s with satisfaction deep in his bones and a sharp pain in his ass. He stretches, groaning both with pleasure and discomfort. He wipes at the sleep left in his eyes, reaching for the body he expects on the other side of the bed before blinking his eyes open when his hands come back empty.

Lucas presses up from the bed, staring in confusion at the space previously occupied by Eliott. The morning feels oddly surreal, as though he’s still caught between sleep and proper wakefulness, and Lucas struggles to connect his disjointed thoughts. He sits for a moment, listening for sounds in the apartment, but unable to tell if Eliott is in the bathroom or kitchen without going to see for himself.

With a grimace of discomfort, Lucas stands up from the bed, moving to retrieve a pair of briefs and t-shirt before he makes his way out into the rest of the apartment. A quick glance towards the bathroom tells him it’s unoccupied, and Lucas takes advantage, ducking in to pee quickly, and after a moment of consideration, quickly brushing his teeth. Kissing someone with stale morning breath isn’t something Lucas has ever particularly minded, but he can’t be sure Eliott will feel the same and it doesn’t hurt to offer up a freshly minty mouth instead.

There’s a buzz beneath Lucas’s skin as he makes his way down the hall and into the main room, the feeling drains from him the moment he steps into the space to find it silent and empty, quickly replaced with a building feeling of dread. Lucas stares stupidly around him. The apartment is tiny. There’s nowhere else Eliott could be and yet Lucas finds himself walking through the space as though expecting him to pop out of a cupboard with a cheeky smile and lips puckered for a morning kiss.

It’s not until Lucas looks over at the couch that he lets the reality of what has happened sink its claws into his chest. The arm of the couch and half of the cushion are darker than the rest of the couch, a result of having been cleaned. There’s no evidence of the mess Lucas left on the material. He should be thankful that Eliott would think to do so – would clean the evidence of them being together so thoroughly. Instead it’s a hollow emptiness filling spaces Lucas had thought… had hoped… Eliott might make a home.

Lucas glances around him sightlessly. There’s no note. No clothes left in the hallway. No evidence of Eliott having been here at all. That’s it then.

Eliott is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr: surrealsunday
> 
> Chapter 2 coming tomorrow I promise! The length of this fic just got a wee bit out of control because /plot/ decided to happen. 
> 
> As an aside, I cannot explain how weird it was to write a scene describing a bar packed with Halloween crowds. That is so far from our current reality it literally felt wrong to write it that way. Whewww buddy what a world we're living in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Thanks for the lovely comments on the first chapter. I hope you all enjoy the conclusion.

* * * *

It’s been two weeks. Two weeks since Halloween. Two weeks since _that_ night. And Lucas is good. Great even. Totally over it. It’s nonsense to keep thinking about it anyways – to keep thinking about _him_. Eliott. Lucas barely does. He doesn’t see Eliott around the university, and their friends aren’t mutual enough to result in any awkward run-ins. So, it’s easy. Eliott is no one. Just a great fuck one night back on Halloween. Nothing more. Exactly as Lucas had planned. Exactly as he’d wanted. And sure, maybe Lucas got a little caught up in the moment, but just because he’s a little less familiar with the near-anonymous hook-up thing, doesn’t mean he can’t accept it. He’s fine.

“Lucas,” Imane complains from his side, “are you even listening?”

Lucas looks to her, immediately offering an apologetic smile. “Yes?”

She rolls her eyes. “You are the worst lab partner ever, you know that?”

He dismisses her with an unconcerned wave of his hand, nearly taking out the flask she’s set up on top of the unlit Bunsen burner. “Nah. You love working with me. We’re besties.”

She snorts, sliding the equipment further away from him. “We are most definitely not.”

Lucas gasps, pressing a hand to his chest with exaggerated heartbreak. “You wound me.”

“Whatever,” she scoffs, smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She sets her notes aside. “What’s going on with you?”

Lucas’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Did you just ask me how I am? And here you are trying to claim we’re not besties.”

“You are ridiculous,” she laughs, shaking her head as she smiles. A more serious expression overtakes her face as her laughter tapers off. “Seriously though. I’ve been picking up your slack for weeks now.”

He gapes, genuinely offended now. “Excuse me? You have not. I’ve been fine.”

“Lucas,” she sighs, sounding like she’s already out of patience, “last week you measured double the compound and nearly knocked the sulfuric acid directly onto my lap. And that’s not to mention the near explosion when –”

“Alright,” Lucas groans. “No need to impress me with your recall, ok?”

“So?” She prompts, staring at him expectantly.

He shrugs uncomfortably. “I’m just… stressed I guess,” he offers vaguely. “I’ll be more on it next week. I promise.”

“I know you will,” she agrees. It’s comforting that she says it like she believes her words. “But if you have other things going on and you need to scale back on the work we’re doing –”

“No,” he interrupts, irritated to think he’s put her in a position of having to offer such a thing. “I’m good, Imane. Really. I just need to… get out of my own head. Relax.” He cringes slightly at the word. “I mean, get away from school and just… stuff. I’ll chill this weekend.”

She nods, moving to sort her notes as she speaks. “Well, if you’re looking for a way to let loose, there’s a party at Sofiane’s tonight.”

Lucas stares at her with something akin to shock. “I’m sorry, I think I just blacked out. Did Imane Bakhellal just invite me to a _party_? A party at a _boy’s_ house?” 

She looks up with faux-annoyance (or… Lucas is going to call it faux-annoyance). “Do you want to come or not?”

“Well, that depends,” he hedges with a cheeky smile. “Do I get to meet the guy?”

“Not if you’re going to be this weird about it.” She cocks an eyebrow as she stares at him.

“I won’t,” Lucas laughs. “Seriously though, I finally get to meet him? You’re that serious?”

“Why are you saying that like introducing him to you is equivalent to meeting the parents?”

“Well, because he needs my approval if he’s got a chance of marrying my daughter.”

“Ugh,” she groans, but a smile tugs at her mouth. “You are so annoying.”

He laughs. “Alright, I’m done.” She doesn’t look convinced. “Really. I’m down. I mean, as long as…” He pauses, unsure how to word his thought without causing offense. “I just mean… not that I don’t trust you to throw a rager but…”

“Relax,” she snorts. “It’s not even Sofiane planning. It’s mostly Idriss. They’re doing it for a friend. That means you’ll have all the alcohol and debauchery you could possibly desire.” Lucas had sorted out the Imane-Idriss sibling connection shortly following Halloween. And by ‘sorted out’ Lucas means Imane mentioned her brother Idriss in passing one day and Lucas nearly had a heart attack. He’d covered well enough, mentioning that they had met on Halloween and _nothing else_.

Lucas grins. “Now we’re talking. It cool if I bring Yann?”

“Sure,” Imane agrees. “And you remember Idriss, right?”

Lucas shifts uncomfortably, not particularly wanting to recall the memories that come along with the question. “Yeah. I remember.”

She nods. “Cool. Then just show up. I’ll text you the address details later.”

Lucas nods, “K.” His eyes drop down to his hands. _Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. He’s no one._

“So?” Imane prompts, waiting for Lucas to look back up before she finishes. “You think you have it in you to concentrate enough to get this lab done without trying to kill us both?”

Lucas presses his lips together, squinting in consideration. “I make no promises.”

She laughs.

* * * *

Lucas shoves sweaty hands into the pockets of his jacket as he and Yann approach the apartment door.

“You’re gonna owe me for this one.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, looking back to Yann before knocking on the door. “Yeah, forcing you to come to a party with girls and free alcohol. Really asking you to step outside your comfort zone.”

Yann raises an eyebrow. “I had a night of getting fat in front of the tv planned. Instead I’m here. You owe me.”

“Whatever,” Lucas dismisses easily. He shifts his weight back and forth on his feet while they wait. There’s noise coming from the other side of the door – typical party sounds – music and people talking. He points towards the door. “You think we should just go in or –” The door swings open and a boy Lucas hasn’t met before appears, a wide and welcoming smile on his face.

“Sorry,” he offers immediately, gesturing for Lucas and Yann to enter, “it’s hard to hear the door over the noise.”

Lucas smiles, nodding as they enter the apartment. “No worries. I just didn’t know if we were supposed to walk in or…” He shrugs, pulling anxiously at a loose string inside his pocket. Yann stands at his shoulder, looking into the apartment curiously and Lucas struggles not to do the same, keeping his attention on the boy in front of them.

“Are you Imane’s friends?” The boy asks, though he says it like less of a question than a statement.

Lucas nods in confirmation. “Yeah, uh,” he gestures at Yann, “this is Yann,” Yann offers a friendly smile and nod, “and I’m Lucas.”

The boy’s attention snaps back to him, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Lucas?”

“Yeah?” Lucas stares at him in confusion. “Imane didn’t…”

The boy shakes his head, his smile returning. “She didn’t mention names. I’m Sofiane.”

Lucas had suspicions but he breaks into a wide smile. “So _you’re_ Sofiane.”

As though she has a sixth sense for when Lucas is about to embarrass her, Imane appears at Sofiane’s side. “You made it.”

Lucas grins at her. “We did indeed. Just meeting _Sofiane_ here.” Imane’s eyes narrow as she looks at him, but his smile doesn’t dim.

Sofiane’s eyes bounce between them. “Should I be worried about the way you’re saying my name or…”

“Ignore him,” Imane says, an edge to her tone that promises retribution should Lucas continue in his chosen path. “I thought your plan was to let loose and relax.” The comment is directed at Lucas.

His eyebrows pull together in question. “Yeah?”

“So,” she gestures towards a counter split between the kitchen and living room where a seemingly endless array of alcohol is available, “go. Imbibe. Enjoy.”

Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Encouraging alcohol consumption all to get me away from your man?” He tuts, shaking his head in disapproval. “What has become of you?”

She groans, reaching forward to flick him across the forehead while Sofiane laughs at her side. “I’m starting to regret inviting you. Get out of my face.”

Lucas bats her hand away with a laugh, raising his own hands in surrender. “Ok, ok. Wouldn’t want to upset my bestie.” It’s truly impressive the way she manages to roll her eyes like that. “But just know,” he turns his attention to Sofiane whose face is stretched with a wide smile, “I may not have known her long, but I still have all the embarrassing stories. Like that time she said orgasm instead of organism and –”

“Go!” Imane commands, bodily shoving him backwards by the shoulders.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Lucas laughs, moving to follow Yann who’s already made his way to the alcohol. He looks back just once over his shoulder to see Imane and Sofiane with their heads bent together. They’re both smiling, looking completely enamoured with one another. A sharp pain directly in Lucas’s chest accompanies the sight. He ignores it, turning back to reach for the drink Yann has already prepared for him.

“Idriss is here.”

Lucas nearly chokes on his drink as he swings his head around to look, spotting Idriss to one corner of the room, a head taller than the people surrounding him.

“Oh… yeah,” Lucas responds, feigning surprise, though he’s pretty sure his initial reaction gave him away. He can feel Yann’s eyes on the side of his face and reluctantly turns to meet them. “What? He’s Imane’s brother. Of course he’s here.”

“And you didn’t mention that because…”

Lucas shrugs, feigning disinterest as he looks back to the main room, scanning the faces milling about. “Why would Imane’s family tree have come up in conversation?”

Yann breathes a sound through his nostrils, not quite amusement. “Us being here has nothing to do with what happened on Halloween then?”

“Nothing happened on Halloween,” Lucas snaps, eyes cutting back to Yann. “Or… nothing important.”

“Right.” Yann tilts his head, looking frustrated but sympathetic. “And that’s why you’ve been weird as fuck for the past two weeks.”

“I haven’t been weird.” He’s very actively tried _not_ to be weird, in fact.

“You’ve been a dick,” Yann states, far too bluntly. “And I’ve overlooked it because I figured you were going through something.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, cutting Yann off before he can say something even more shame-inducing. “I wasn’t _going through something_. I’ve just been stressed. I’m fine.” Yann opens his mouth to respond and Lucas plows ahead. “We’re not here because of Halloween. Idriss is your friend – why are you acting like you have some problem with him being here?”

“I worked with him on one group project in class and hung out on Halloween. We’re not bosom pals.”

“And you won’t be if you don’t make an effort,” Lucas teases, latching on to the opportunity to lighten the tone in their conversation. “You want me to hold your hand while you talk to him? Tell him what a good best friend you are? Five stars, definitely recommend.”

Yann relaxes into a laugh, shaking his head as he looks at Lucas. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

Lucas shrugs. “Eh. You love me.”

Yann doesn’t disagree, looking back towards Idriss and tipping his head in that direction. “We going to say hi, or what?”

Lucas shrugs, hoping the nerves that have just scattered like fire ants inside his stomach don’t show on his face. “Sure. If you want.”

“If I want,” Yann repeats with a subtle scoff, gesturing for them to leave the kitchen and leading the way. “Right.”

Lucas should be embarrassed that his interest is so transparent, and his ulterior motives for coming to the party so clear, even to Yann. Though maybe that’s it – it’s _Yann_. Yann knows him better than anyone. Yann was the one who came home the afternoon post-Halloween and had to face Lucas in a mood of monumentally sour proportions, unwilling to talk about what happened beyond, “We fucked. Like I planned. That’s it. That’s all. Drop it.” And so, Yann understanding there is something more going on with Lucas’s decision to come to a party where there _might_ be a chance of seeing Eliott, doesn’t mean he knows the details, nor that anyone else will. How could they when Lucas himself doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing?

“Idriss,” Yann calls with a wide smile as they approach. Moving to clasp hands with him in greeting when Idriss turns towards them, returning his smile with a friendly greeting of his own.

“Hey man. What are you-” He cuts off when he sees Lucas, his smile dropping. The sight hits Lucas’s stomach like a brick of lead. “Lucas.”

Lucas musters up a smile, knowing it will read as weak and inauthentic but trying all the same. “Hey Idriss.” What did he expect? That Eliott’s best friend would be _happy_ to see him? When Eliott made it more than clear he had no intention of seeing Lucas again? That Idriss would wrap him in a warm hug with an explanation as to why Eliott had ghosted Lucas so completely – no note, and no attempts to explain himself in the weeks that followed? He can’t even answer his own question. He doesn’t know. He’d just… hoped…

“Imane invited Lucas,” Yann explains. “So, he dragged me along. Hope you don’t mind us crashing.”

“Nah, no,” Idriss dismisses with a wave of his hand, the movement awkward and stilted. “It’s cool. Uh – how’ve you been?” He’s looking at Lucas.

Lucas shrugs, “Fine. Usual.”

Idriss nods, mouth twisting as his gaze strays from them, scanning the room.

“You see the reading list Caron sent out?” Yann asks, eyes flicking back and forth between them before settling on Idriss.

“Uh, yeah,” Idriss responds, posture relaxing as he returns his attention to Yann. “Don’t know how he expects us to get that done when we already have the essay to write.”

“God, I know,” Yann groans. “It’s like all the professors forget we’re taking more than just their class.”

“You said it,” Idriss commiserates. “I had a look at the first article, it’s fifty pages. No joke.”

“Shit, I’m so screwed.”

Lucas watches with disinterest as they continue to talk, delving into some sort of plan to share notes and split the workload.

“I’m gonna…” He interrupts, gesturing that he’ll leave them to it. “I’ll go find Imane.” He turns.

“Hold up.” Idriss stops him with a firm hand to his forearm, releasing when Lucas turns back around confused. Idriss purses his lips, looking pensive before he speaks. “Eliott is here.”

It feels a lot like Lucas’s heart has frozen in his chest, time suspended with it, until suddenly everything begins moving again, this time in a frenzy. “Ok?” He’s proud of the way his voice doesn’t shake, calm and disinterested.

Idriss’s eyes narrow. “You don’t care?”

“Why would I care?” _Why do you care?_ He wants to ask.

“Alright,” Idriss scoffs, breathing out a sound of annoyance. It cuts into Lucas’s skin, sharp and biting. It makes him angry, makes him feel spiteful and wronged. He’s not the asshole here. And ok… so it could be argued Eliott isn’t either. Not like they made one another any promises. But if someone is going to get labeled ‘asshole’, it’s sure as hell not going to be Lucas. “Don’t care then,” Idriss continues. “But do me a solid and avoid him if you see him, yeah? The point of this party was to get him to chill. He’s sees you and…” He shrugs, letting the thought remain unfinished.

Lucas’s mouth drops open as he stares at him, so taken aback he finds words escaping him entirely.

“Lu,” Yann speaks from his side, his tone cautious and confused, “want me to come with?”

Lucas’s eyes swing to him before moving back to Idriss. “No, I – what? No.” He shakes his head, bringing a hand up to rake through his hair. “I’m not the one with the problem here,” he finally bursts in one violent exhale of breath. With that, he spins around and marches away from them. There’s a heat crawling up his chest and spreading into his face. It’s not at all pleasant.

The last thing he wants to do in his current state of agitation is talk to someone like Imane. She’ll see right through him whether she knows the story or not. Instead he ducks down into the hallway leading off from the living room. The floorplan thankfully being a lot like his own at home, he finds the bathroom at the far end, unoccupied.

Lucas locks the door behind him, leaning against the counter with a heavy exhale. He reaches for the tap, splashing the cold water on his face before he looks up at his reflection staring back. He was an idiot to come here. He hadn’t wanted to admit his motives even to himself – hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the swell of want that came with imagining seeing Eliott again. Because it’s stupid – stupid and _pathetic_ that he should still want Eliott just as desperately as he had when Eliott had pressed him up against the wall. When he’d said Lucas was made for him alone.

At the very least, Lucas should have come with a desire for answers, a need to know why Eliott had left the way he had, why he’d never tried to explain, whether being with Lucas really meant that little to him. Lucas doesn’t care about any of it, not really, now when all he can feel is that all encompassing ache that’s taken up residence in the hollow spaces of his body. Not when all he wants is him. _Eliott._

He needs to leave. Idriss doesn’t want him here because Eliott wouldn’t want Lucas here. Coming was a mistake.

He dries his hands on a rumpled towel hanging from the rack before reaching for the door and yanking it open. He moves sightlessly into the hall only to run directly into another person’s body. He makes a sound of surprise, stumbling back slightly. The other person has frozen and Lucas’s eyes catch on his face and lock. Eliott. Looking just as shocked to see Lucas as Lucas is him.

“Hey.” The effect of Eliott’s voice is instantaneous, sending shockwaves across Lucas’s skin, ripples of current that leave his skin feeling as though the slightest spark and it would combust into flame.

“Hi.” The word is half-choked in his throat, and Lucas swallows desperately, eyes dropping to Eliott’s chest as he tries to get a handle on himself.

“How – how are you?”

Lucas looks back up, surprised not to be questioned on why he’s at the party in the first place. “I’m –” It’s ridiculous that simply looking into Eliott’s eyes should hurt this much. He looks away once more. “Good. I’m… fine.” He can see Eliott nodding. His hands are buried in his pockets and he’s hunched in on himself. It’s a habit Lucas had noticed that first night. He’d thought it was Eliott’s oddly polite way of trying not to appear that much taller than those around him. Lucas isn’t so sure anymore. It’s almost as though Eliott himself believes he’s much smaller than he is. Lucas skirts his eyes around Eliott’s shoulder, looking desperately down the hallway towards an escape path.

“So, no hedgehog onesie?”

Lucas looks back to see Eliott smiling, looking sweet and hopeful. “No, I… no.” Lucas doesn’t understand why Eliott bothers. It’s worse this way – so much worse than it would be if Lucas could just write Eliott off as some asshole, a mistake. Instead he’s… _this_. Everything Lucas remembers. Everything he wants.

“I was thinking,” Eliott continues, his eyes as gentle as the smile pulling at his mouth, “if hedgehogs see better in the dark then –”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas cuts him off, emotion clogging his throat. “I can’t.” He doesn’t wait for a reaction from Eliott, pushing past him and down the hall instead. He hurries through the people crowding the small apartment, blinded by grief totally out of proportion with the loss experienced. It’s there all the same, thick and smothering, making his breath come short and his vision blurry.

It feels as though he doesn’t truly breathe until he reaches the sidewalk outside the building. He gulps in the cold night air, shivering as it seeps beneath his jacket and kisses at his skin. A hand falls on his shoulder and the muscles of his body lock until he turns his face to see it’s Yann.

“Just tell me one thing?” Yann asks, his eyes serious and locked on Lucas in concern. Lucas nods in request that he continue. “Should I be going back up there and punching Eliott in the face?”

Lucas laughs, more a hiccup of a thing than expression of full-bodied humour, but his amusement is genuine. “Like you’d ever.”

“I would,” Yann disagrees. “If he deserved it.” He pauses, eyes scanning Lucas’s face. “Does he?”

“No,” Lucas denies quickly before reconsidering. “Or… I dunno. Maybe. Maybe I do. I don’t really know what happened.”

Yann nods, thankfully not asking any follow-up questions. “This a picking up alcohol on the way home kinda night, or stopping by the store for ice cream?”

Lucas snorts, shoving a shoulder into Yann’s side and then leaving it there, resting his weight against him. “Both. Definitely both.”

* * * *

Lucas tosses his sandwich onto the cafeteria table and slumps down onto the bench next to Imane with a groan. He folds his arms across the surface before dropping his head down to his arms, shutting his eyes with a pitiful whine.

She laughs at the display, her hand moving to pat his back just once before she speaks. “Good weekend then?”

“No,” he huffs, turning his head so she can at least bear witness to his miserable pout.

She cocks an eyebrow, not looking particularly sympathetic. “Well if you think you’re getting out of rewriting our report –”

“‘Course not,” he scoffs, though he really wouldn’t mind if she took pity on him and didn’t force him to do so today. “Just… after lunch.”

“Fine,” she agrees, “but only because –” Her words are lost to Alexia’s exuberant arrival.

“How are the two most beautiful people in this university doing today?”

Imane laughs and Lucas manages a smile, what’s probably his first genuine smile of the day. “Are you including yourself in that?” Imane asks with a grin.

“Two most beautiful people other than me,” Alexia clarifies with a wink. “You know if you two were interested in being a throuple, we’d be unstoppable.”

Lucas snorts. “Sorry. I love women just… not like that.”

Alexia smirks. “Yeah but if you were gonna go for a girl…”

“Obviously no others would do,” Lucas allows with a laugh.

“Eh, not like Imane’s available anyways,” Alexia says with a regretful sigh. “Lost to the world of curls and dimples.”

Imane sighs as Lucas swings around on her. “Is that right?” He asks gleefully. “Got yourself an official boyfriend, do you?”

“Would you two let off?” Imane complains, glaring at them both. “We’ve only hung out a couple times. I don’t even know if he really likes me like that.”

“Please!” Alexia scoffs. “I’ve seen you two together, remember? That boy is _twitterpated_.”

“Twitterpated?” Lucas asks with a laugh.

“Yes.” Alexia looks at him with raised eyebrows as though it were ridiculous he wouldn’t recognize the term. “Disney. Bambi. Hello?! He’s got it _bad_.”

“Gonna have to judge that for myself,” Lucas says with a decisive nod. “Make sure he’s good enough for our Imane.”

“I thought you were going to,” Imane remarks from his side, looking to him in question. “At the party. You just disappeared.”

“Oh.” Lucas shifts uncomfortably, averting his eyes. “Yeah. Sorry. Wasn’t feeling well. I took off early.”

Imane shrugs, not questioning the excuse. “For the best anyways.”

“Why?” Lucas asks with a grin, latching to the humour in the conversation once more. “Worried I was gonna embarrass you in front of him?”

“Yes,” Imane deadpans, cracking a smile only when Lucas and Alexia laugh. “But also, the party didn’t last too long. Idriss and Sofiane started clearing people out pretty shortly after I saw you.”

“Why?” Alexia asks before Lucas is able.

“They threw it for a friend,” Imane explains. “Were trying to get him let loose and – I don’t know – find someone to spend the night with or whatever.” She shrugs. “But he wasn’t into it. He and Idriss had _words_ ,” she raises her eyebrows at them significantly, “and after that the party was pretty much done.”

Lucas’s heart is beating loudly in his ears, his blood feeling thick and slow in his veins. “Who?”

“Eliott,” Imane answers without pause, having no idea the impact the name will have on Lucas. “I don’t know if you met him. He’s –”

“Oh, Lucas has _met_ him,” Alexia answers with a snort. Lucas can feel a sweat break out on the back of his neck the moment Imane turns back to him.

“What does that mean?”

“On Halloween,” Lucas explains, his voice quieted to a broken, near fragile thing. He drops his eyes to the table, pulling at the baggie holding his sandwich. “We met on Halloween.”

“Halloween,” Imane repeats, an odd note to her voice.

“Wait,” Alexia pipes up, “Am I missing something here? Lucas,” she reaches across the table, resting a hand on his arm when he doesn’t respond, “are you ok? Did something happen?”

He looks up with a meek smile, not wanting to truly worry her. “Nah, I’m fine. I just…” He sighs, the weight of two weeks worth of disappointment sitting heavy on his shoulders. “I liked him.” It’s the first time he’s spoken the thought out loud. “I really liked him, but – uh…” He swallows around the lump in his throat, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his hands. “He wasn’t as into me.”

“Shit,” Alexia exhales in time with Imane saying his name, “Lucas.”

He inhales deeply before looking up at her. But it’s not the pity he expects written across her face. Instead there’s an unexpected hesitancy, like she’s holding back.

“Lucas, the reason they were throwing that party –” She pauses, looking torn before she continues. “Eliott has been pretty torn up the past couple of weeks.”

Lucas stares at her, barely comprehending the words. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t really know the details,” she admits. “But something happened… on Halloween.” She stares at him, her eyes heavy with meaning. “He was…” She shakes her head as though the words to describe Eliott elude her. “I got the impression the guy rejected him.”

“What?” Lucas exclaims with an outraged breath. “I didn’t! That’s – what the fuck?!!”

“Lucas,” Alexia tries, petting his arm gently in an attempt to calm him down. But it’s too late now. Because _what the fuck?!!!_

“That’s not what happened. He _left_. He just… disappeared!” The volume of his voice has risen of its own volition and he catches curious glances of passing students. He can’t bring himself to care. “This is such bullshit!” Lucas rises to a stand, moving from the bench and channeling his anger into pacing back and forth at the end of the table as he rants. “Where does he get off acting like he’s been hurt? Like with Idriss – looking at me like _I’m_ the asshole. What the fuck was that?!”

“Idriss?” Imane questions but Lucas can’t pause to clarify.

“And then he acts all… cute? And sweet?! Like he didn’t completely fuck me over the very first time I ever – god!” He moves both hands to his hair, yanking roughly. “He doesn’t get to do that! He makes it worse. He makes me want – and I – I –” He stutters, inhaling a shaky, enraged breath. “I want to yell it in his face. Want to tell him off – tell him to _fuck off_. He just – he just –”

“So do it,” Alexia interrupts his disjointed rant.

He stares at her. “What?”

“Do it,” she repeats with a shrug. “You’re pissed and it sounds like you have every reason to be. He was a dick to you and –”

“I really don’t think he meant to be,” Imane cuts in, before adding, “but I agree. You two need to talk.”

“Yeah, well,” Embarrassment seeps through the pores of Lucas’s skin, “I don’t even have his number so…”

“I do,” Imane admits. “Or…” She looks between them, her eyes taking on a new glint. “I could tell you where to find him.”

“Hell yes, Imane!” Alexia hollers happily. “Come through!”

“Where?” Lucas asks, heart suddenly lodged in his throat.

“He works in his studio almost every afternoon,” she admits. “I know he’s going to be there today.”

“Go!” Alexia encourages when Lucas continues to stand motionless, staring dumbly at Imane.

His eyes flick between them. He wants to. The idea of seeing Eliott again… Lucas doesn’t think he’d ever turn down the opportunity, no matter how painful. But it’s also… _seeing Eliott again_. The prospect is as terrifying as it is exciting.

“Ok.” He inhales a steadying breath, nodding decisively. “Ok.”

Imane picks up her phone, busying herself with it for a second before she looks back up and gestures to where Lucas’s phone sits on the table. “There. I sent you a pin. When you get to the building, he’ll be on the second floor. Studio 2121.”

“2121. Ok. Got it.”

“Go get your man!” Alexia encourages with a whoop. “Or tell off your man – kick him in the balls – I don’t know. I’m with ya, buddy!”

He nods, too nervous to laugh the way he might have otherwise, and grabs for his phone. He bites his lip, inhaling one long, measuring breath before straightening his shoulders and turning to leave.

“Lucas,” Imane calls before he’s made it further than a couple meters from the table. He turns back, raising an expectant eyebrow. “I think…” She hesitates, searching for the right words. “This matters to Eliott. From what he said – it sounded like he’s been into the guy – _you_ – for a long time.”

Lucas’s face pulls in confusion. “We met for the first time on Halloween.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Just… talk, ok? I don’t think you’re alone in this.”

Lucas lets the words bolster him, let’s them straighten his spine, and fill him determination. Whatever the situation – whatever happened – he’s getting _answers_ this time.

* * * *

The building itself is quite large but the studios aren’t hard to find. It’s a polar opposite experience from the sterile environment Lucas is used to in his own department, the sciences not lending themselves to the artistic mess strewn about these hallways. Half-finished projects decorate window ledges and the limited floor space, spilled over from classrooms far too small for the projects being undertaken.

Students mill about the space, collected in cliques that remind Lucas of the worn couch in his favourite coffee shop – mismatched pillows, and cushions that swallow you whole – eclectic, not like anything Lucas has in his own apartment, and yet comfy in a strangely familiar way.

Lucas feels a lot like a thumb tack placed right in the middle of that couch, sorely out of place and bound to cause upset when discovered. Ok, so, he’s maybe feeling a tad bit dramatic but… the situation calls for it.

He scuffs his feet along the floor as he counts the numbers on the doors until he sees it. 2121. The door is partially ajar, sunlight streaming through the crack visible into the space. Lucas drags to a stop, staring at the door, which suddenly seems a lot more imposing than it had been only seconds earlier.

He’s jostled by a passing student, who bumps into him while passing without a word, busy in conversation with a friend. It startles Lucas out of his reverie, and he bites his lip cautiously approaching the door. He doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t have any idea what he’ll say. He’d been so hyped up on his own indignation when he’d stood at the table with Imane and Alexia encouraging him, but he finds himself drained of his purpose now, uncertain and nervous.

A soft knock at the door doesn’t produce a response and Lucas carefully pushes it open, poking his head through before entering upon realizing the room is empty. It doesn’t look like it’s been unoccupied long. There’s a steaming cup of tea sat beside a scattered pile of papers – drawings by the looks of them – spread across the floor. They’re not what captures Lucas’s attention. Instead it’s a painting leaning against the wall. Light streaming through the blinds to one side of the studio scatter shards of light across it, making the colours appear even more vibrant than they already are. It’s abstract… or maybe not. Lucas isn’t all that well versed in art analysis. The shapes and colours are sharp and angular, the picture as a whole reminding Lucas a little of a hallway. It’s as though the viewer were being asked to step into the painting – to continue down the hall. Lucas is surprised by how drawn to it he is. He figured Eliott was talented but… wow. His eyes drop to the corner of the canvas and he crouches to get a better look. It’s where an artist would normally sign their work. Only it’s not Eliott’s name. It’s a tiny symbol instead. A raccoon. His tag. Lucas smiles.

He rises back to a stand, taking in the rest of the room. There are unfinished paintings, and untouched canvases set to one side, a table with scattered papers and used cups. He turns, taking in the shelves of art supplies before he faces the opposite wall and freezes. He hadn’t noticed it as he walked in, too distracted searching the space for Eliott. The wall is plastered with drawings, no space left unoccupied. There’s nothing random about them. They’re all of the same subject. A man – no – boy. He can’t be much older than Lucas. Every drawing focuses on him in a different way: his eyes, his lips, his smile. There are gestures too: he’s kissing someone, his hands are against someone’s chest, his head thrown back in pleasure. It’s… a shrine. A shrine to someone so thoroughly loved it hits Lucas with the same pain and abrupt surprise a brick to the face would.

This boy isn’t Lucas. This boy Eliott has drawn picture after picture of is… someone else. Someone clearly loved. Worshipped even. And Lucas is… stupid. _So fucking stupid._

He staggers for the door, wrenching it open and tripping into the hall. The revelation hurts worse than the first morning, when Lucas had found Eliott gone. Because he hadn’t known then, he hadn’t known the reason. He knows now. Eliott is in love. He had sex with Lucas, and Lucas doesn’t know what that means – if it meant anything at all – but it doesn’t change the reality. Eliott has someone. Someone he loves. There’s no place for Lucas. There never was.

Lucas stumbles blindly towards the stairs when he hears him. Laughing. It’s painfully familiar. It shouldn’t be. Not when Lucas has only one night to draw upon for memories, but it still cuts to his bone. Eliott. He’s coming up the stairs.

Lucas swings around, searching the hallway desperately for an escape. There’s a door on the far end of the hall: an emergency exit. The sight couldn’t be more fitting. Lucas rushes down the hall, doing his best not to break into a run and draw more attention to himself. And it’s as the door is within reach, the emergency exit sign glowing tauntingly, that he hears his name being called.

“Lucas!” Eliott’s voice is surprised, his tone caught between something incredulous and maybe something a little more hopeful.

Lucas doesn’t look back. He dives for the door, slamming it open and moving without pause into the stairwell. He hears his name being called again, this time more frantic. He can’t stop. He can’t look at Eliott’s face now, knowing what he knows, knowing it will _never_ be him. It hurts far more than it should, far more than a one-night-stand should demand. It feels like losing something so much more important – an opportunity, a chance… lost. It doesn’t slip from his hand, it’s pulled, stolen out of his grasp, his desperate hold no match for the force taking it. Eliott was never his.

Lucas runs.

* * * *

Lucas makes it two days managing to avoid everyone – even Yann, and that’s a particularly impressive feat considering they’re roommates – before the world decides to fuck him over in the most spectacular of ways.

Yann had texted him during his morning class with a particularly detailed threat that Lucas was to have lunch with him or face the consequences. What those consequences would be, he’d outlined in the sort of detailed fashion only a literature student could manage. Lucas had reluctantly agreed.

It’s not that Lucas thinks Yann will force him to talk, to spill his guts or share anything he doesn’t want to share. It’s that Lucas wants to – _desperately_ wants to unburden himself and move the fuck on – but every time he considers what to say, his mind comes up blank. Where’s he even supposed to begin when the truth is so goddamn pathetic? _I think I just experienced my first real heartbreak and it was a guy I fucked once. I knew him for less than 24 hours and managed to fall harder than I ever did in 6-month relationships. He’s in love with someone else. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t get over it._ Pathetic. He’s pathetic.

He’s slumped on a bench at the edge of the courtyard, jacket pulled tightly around him to ward off the chill of the day, when someone trips over his extended legs, yelping and dropping their cup of coffee which hits the ground with an impressive slosh, droplets splashing back and onto Lucas’s pant legs.

“Shit!” The guy exclaims, catching himself before plummeting face-first into the cement. “Oh fuck.”

Lucas, so deeply lost in his own head, reacts far more slowly. He scoots back his legs, extending an unhelpful hand in front of him. “Jesus. I’m sorry. Are you ok?”

The boy looks up. _Fuck_. _FUCK._

“No, it was my bad. I wasn’t looking where I was going. Shit, I got coffee on you.” He gestures to Lucas’s pant legs, biting his lip anxiously as he looks back up. Lucas can only stare. It’s him. The boy. The one in Eliott’s drawings. “Um…” He shifts uncomfortably as Lucas continues to stare at him silently. “I could pay for dry-cleaning or…”

“What? Oh. No,” Lucas shakes his head rapidly, less of an answer than an attempt to clear it of what feels like cotton balls crammed against his brain, “no, it’s fine. Sorry. I’m just…” He drops his eyes to stare sightlessly at the pavement. No words are an adequate summary for the ridiculous bullshit that is Lucas’s life at this current moment. “Out of it,” he settles on.

The boy chuckles a little and gestures at the bench next to Lucas. “Do you mind if I – not because of…” He awkwardly waves at the spilled coffee and Lucas’s pants. “It’s just that I told my boyfriend to meet me here.”

Lucas’s heart seizes in his chest. He manages a nod, clenching the fist tucked away in his jacket pocket and focusing on the sting as his nails bite into the palm of his hand as the boy sits down next to him. He should leave. He should most definitely leave. No good can come of extending this moment – this exercise in self-torture.

“I’m Lucas.”

The boy looks up from his phone, offering a polite smile. “Robbe.”

Lucas nods, leaning forward to rest his forearms against his knees and focusing his eyes on his twisting hands. Now’s his chance. He could ask whatever he likes. How long have you two been together? Is it serious? How did you meet? Robbe might think him nosey and a little strange, but he could – he could ask.

“You have plans?’ Lucas asks, upon the skeptical look on Robbe’s face, adding, “With your boyfriend, I mean.”

“Oh,” he smiles, “yeah. He’s late.” He laughs a little and it’s laced with affection. “He’s an artist and I swear he loses all sense of time when he’s working on something.” There’s pride in his voice, and it shouldn’t make Lucas so sad. It’s all someone with Eliott’s talent deserves.

“Art was never really my thing,” Lucas admits. “Like it and all. Just… don’t think my talents there progressed past nursery school.”

Robbe laughs. “Yeah, I know what you mean. To be honest I only got into it because of him. Kinda hard not to get turned to the dark side when a hot guy is leading the way.”

Lucas musters up a smile. “Art’s the dark side?”

“When you’re studying sciences? Yeah.”

Lucas nearly laughs. He’s nice. He’s fucking _nice_. And cute. And he loves and supports his boyfriend. Eliott. Lucas is going to be sick.

“I should –”

 _“Lucas_.”

No. _No._ Eliott can’t be here. Lucas cannot handle Eliott standing in front of him, eyes wide and surprised, and more beautiful than Lucas even remembers him being.

“You two know one another?” It’s Robbe asking. Robbe, Eliott’s boyfriend. Nice, unsuspecting Robbe, who has no idea Lucas and Eliott slept together. Anger swiftly overpowers the sickly unrest brewing in Lucas’s stomach.

“I need to go.”

“No, but –”

Lucas stands, ignoring Eliott’s protest, and turning back to Robbe to offer a curt but genuine, “It was nice to meet you,” before he moves around Eliott and away.

“Wait.” But Lucas won’t. “Would you please _wait?_!” This time Eliott’s hand is on his arm, his grip firm as he swings Lucas back around. “Why are you always running away?!”

Lucas sees red. “Are you kidding me?!”

Eliott looks wholly taken aback by the ferocity of Lucas’s response. “No? You were at the party, you came to my studio, and now…” He gestures to where Lucas stands, looking frustrated and confused.

“ _Now_ ,” Lucas speaks, steely resolve beneath is tone, “now I’m leaving.” He makes a move to turn around once more but unsurprisingly, Eliott isn’t done. He leaps past Lucas, blocking the path.

“Please, would you just –”

“Did you cheat on him with me?” It’s a thought Lucas hasn’t wanted to speak, a fear he didn’t want to make reality by giving it voice.

Eliott looks flabbergasted. “Wha – what are you talking about?”

“I wondered why, you know,” Lucas chokes on a laugh with little humour, “why you’d leave like that when we – when it was so good. Not just the sex. Everything. Talking to you. Being with you.”

“Lucas…”

“It’s obvious now.” He searches for his anger but all he can find is despair. “How could you be with me when you love him?”

“Lucas,” Eliott looks like he’s battling with a multitude of emotions and he speaks with halting caution, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Is he going to deny it? Even now? With Robbe sitting only meters away? This isn’t who Lucas thought Eliott was, though he supposes, maybe he doesn’t know Eliott at all.

“Yeah, ok,” he scoffs. “You ghosting me has nothing to do with him.”

“I didn’t ghost you.” Eliott’s voice is filled with indignation and it only raises Lucas’s ire.

“Yeah, you fucking did. You disappeared. You didn’t even leave a note. I didn’t have your number.”

“Ok, I – I guess I did,” Eliott admits with a frustrated sigh, “but I was only doing what you wanted. I couldn’t –” His gaze drops and his face pinches with agitation. “I couldn’t be with you after that and pretend it was just a fuck, ok?”

“Who asked you to?!” Lucas explodes, voice echoing off the stone partitions surrounding them.

“You!” Eliott’s voice rises to meet the level of Lucas’s. “You did – or – or you might as well have.” Lucas doesn’t understand. He _doesn’t understand_. “You said it yourself. To Yann.” A gaping hole opens up in Lucas’s stomach, his internal organs plummeting to the earth beneath him. “I heard you,” Eliott continues, voice suddenly flooded with emotion. “What you said – that you didn’t know me, didn’t need to. That it was just a fuck. Nothing more. I heard you.”

“Eliott, I…” His voice trails off, thready and weak. Lucas doesn’t know what to do with this new information – what it changes. “I was just – I was talking shit.” It’s a terrible explanation, but it’s also true. “I was just,” he waves a frustrated hand through the air, “telling him what he wanted to hear so he’d leave me the fuck alone about it.”

“Telling him what he wanted to hear.” Eliott repeats Lucas’s words with an air of disbelief.

“Yeah and…” Lucas exhales heavily. “Me too, I guess.” He pulls a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands. “I didn’t think it would be… _this_.” He stares imploringly at Eliott, the raw honesty of the sentiment bolstering him to continue. “I wanted you and – _god_ , I thought it could be just that. Sex. But then…”

“Then?” Eliott prompts. Lucas can’t do much more than shrug, staring beseechingly. Eliott doesn’t look away, looking back just as steadily, until suddenly, he smiles. It’s close-mouthed but genuine, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You like me.” He does. So much. Even now. But he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, because…

“So?” Lucas huffs, defensive and annoyed. “What difference does it make? It doesn’t change anything.”

“It doesn’t change anything?” Eliott repeats, incredulous. “Lucas, I like you too. It changes everything.”

Lucas feels his cheek flush with pleasure at the statement, heat spreading down to his extremities and radiating out. He wants to wrap Eliott up in it, to pull him in and hold him there, warm in the comfort of their feelings. But –

“You have a boyfriend.” Lucas means to shout the words, spit them in Eliott’s face. Instead when he speaks them, they’re broken and sorrow filled.

Eliott’s eyebrows pulls together. He looks confused but there’s an undercurrent of anger there too. “I don’t have a boyfriend. How could you think I had a boyfriend?!”

Lucas’s mouth drops open. He can’t believe Eliott would deny it – deny it when the evidence is sitting right behind them. “Robbe,” Lucas says as though Eliott might have forgotten the name of his own boyfriend. “How can you…?” He flaps an arm uselessly in the air, turning back in the direction of the bench. “Robbe’s your boyfriend.” Robbe has since risen from the bench and he stands just in front of it now. Lucas is startled to see another person has joined him, a boy with vibrantly bleached hair. Robbe’s face is a picture of shock. The other boy, however, looks far more amused. He stands beside Robbe with a slanted smile as he looks back and forth between the group.

“Is that right?” He asks, looking a moment from laughter. Lucas doesn’t see the same humour in the situation at all.

“Why on earth would you think Robbe was my boyfriend?”

Lucas turns back to Eliott, feeling a lot like the foundations upon which he’d built his anger are cracking, a fissure in the cement beneath him opening, and he wonders if perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have it swallow him whole.

“You…” He struggles to locate any semblance of words or an explanation. “He is?” It’s a question now. It’s definitely a question.

“No, he’s not!” Eliott sounds like he’s insulted by the very implication. “What would have made you think that?”

“But…” Lucas doesn’t understand how he could have gotten this so wrong – gotten it so wrong when he saw the evidence of Eliott’s love himself. “I went to your studio. Your walls are covered in him.”

Eliott looks confused for only a split second before his face transforms. He looks a lot like he’s just discovered the universe is specifically playing a trick on him. Lucas knows the feeling. “My studio. Fuck. The drawings.” He’s abruptly throwing a glare over Lucas’s shoulder, and Lucas follows its path, turning back to look at the two boys standing behind him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” the bleached blond boy responds, the same amusement colouring his tone. “He’s my muse. And drawing him is the only way I get over artist’s block.”

At his side, Robbe turns to look at him, hands curling around the boy’s arm and a sweet smile overtaking his face. He’s looking at him like… he loves him.

“The drawings are yours?” Lucas isn’t even sure how he manages to get the words out. His chest feels as though it’s being compressed by shock.

The boy’s eyebrows bounce in acknowledgement and he pops a, “Yep”, wrapping an arm around Robbe’s back to pull him closer.

“But…” Lucas turns back to look at Eliott, unable to fully process how wrong he’s gotten things.

“Sander and I share a studio,” Eliott offers as explanation, and his eyes are starting to shine with a different emotion now. Affection. Affection mixed with hope. “He’s my roommate and studio-mate.” Eliott glances back towards the couple quickly. “And he’s obsessed with Robbe.”

“Alright,” Sander scoffs, “enough with the dramatics. He’s my boyfriend. I’m allowed to be a little obsessed.” Robbe grins at him, curling further into his side.

“I had to listen to you whine about him for two months before you ever got together,” Eliott counters. “You’re more than a little obsessed.”

One of Sander’s eyebrows rises in a look that screams challenge. “Yeah?” He gestures at Lucas. “I had to listen to you whine about him for _six_ months. You really want to talk about who’s obsessed?”

Lucas hears Eliott suck in a sharp breath as he turns to look at him. “Six…? But we met on Halloween.”

Eliott’s face has flushed and if Lucas didn’t know any better, he would say Eliott was embarrassed. “Yeah,” he agrees, looking flustered and… really damn adorable, if Lucas is honest. “But, uh, I saw you before then.”

“You did?” Lucas’s voice is something like a squeak, but absolutely no one could blame him for his shock in this particular moment.

“Last year,” he continues, gaining confidence as he speaks. “When I transferred here. First day actually.”

“But you never… we never met.” It seems an absolute crime they never met.

“I was going to introduce myself,” Eliott explains, “later, when I saw you at a party, but…” He drops his eyes, shifting uncomfortably and it’s Sander who answers for him.

“You were all over some other guy.”

Eliott looks up with a frown. “I didn’t say he was all over him.”

“Sorry,” Sander snorts, “would you rather I explain in detail how you cried over him having a boyfriend?”

“I didn’t cry,” Eliott pouts.

“Florent.” Eliott’s eyes fly back to him when Lucas speaks. “My ex. You didn’t talk to me because of Florent?” It seems a cruel trick of nature that one of the most lackluster relationships of Lucas’s life kept him from meeting Eliott for _six months_.

“Was going to anyways, actually,” Eliott admits with a cheeky smile, “but I was biding my time, waiting to get you alone, and then suddenly you were gone.” He shrugs, looking regretful. “I’d see you around sometimes but it’s like you were taunting me – always in the distance and only for a few seconds at a time. Until… Halloween.”

_Holy shit._

“You wanted me since then? Since you first saw me?” Six months. He wanted and _kept_ wanting Lucas for six months.

“Yes,” Eliott answers without pause.

“And you like me?” He didn’t want to leave the morning after Halloween. He wouldn’t have, not if it weren’t for Lucas’s idiotic words to Yann. Eliott had left because he thought _Lucas_ didn’t want something serious.

“Yes.” Eliott’s smile is growing.

“And you don’t have a boyfriend.” He needs it said out loud, just one more time, when he actually believes it.

“No. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Lucas stares at him, wide eyed and amazed.

“ _Soooo_ ,” someone speaks from behind them. Robbe’s voice, rife with humour, “I’m guessing this means you’re not joining us for lunch?”

Eliott doesn’t look away from Lucas. “No. Don’t think I am.”

“Didn’t want you third-wheeling anyway.” Sander this time.

Eliott cuts his eyes away, glaring in his direction. “Would you go already?!”

Lucas hears Robbe and Sander laugh. They say something else, Eliott banters back. Lucas thinks he hears his name, Robbe saying it was nice to meet him. Something like that. He can’t focus on any of it. Eliott is here, in front of him, and he wants Lucas just as much as Lucas wants him. It doesn’t feel real – not after weeks of convincing himself he’d never have this, that he had been wrong, that Eliott wasn’t as important as Lucas imagined him to be.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone in one night? Lucas thinks it might be. He thinks he knew it then too. From the moment they met.

Eliott is turning back to him, eyes focusing on Lucas’s face with a relaxed smile. Lucas leaps forward.

Eliott catches him just as Lucas presses their lips together, and he responds instantaneously. His arms move around Lucas’s shoulders, one holding him in place, the other threading through his hair as Lucas slants their lips together.

It had been good from the start with Eliott. Everything about being with him, talking to him, laughing with him, had felt right. And yet it still shocks Lucas that kissing someone can be _this_ good, can make him feel this _much_. He can’t believe he’d ever accepted he’d have to give it up.

Lucas pulls back from the kiss, waiting for Eliott’s eyes to open and focus on him before he speaks. “You know I – I _do_ want something serious.”

Eliott’s face splits into a joyful smile, so bright and happy it should be blinding. Lucas wouldn’t look away if it was. “Good,” he moves his hands to cup Lucas’s face, thumbs brushing gently against the skin of Lucas’s cheeks, and tips their foreheads together, “because I’m not going anywhere.”

Lucas tips his head back to stare at Eliott in wonder. “Yeah?”

With a gentle nod, Eliott dives back in for another kiss. It’s deep and hungry from the start, and it’s so easy to part his lips for Eliott, to sink into the kiss with a happy sound from deep in his throat. He allows himself a long, satisfying taste before he forces their lips to part, pushing Eliott back slightly by the chest.

“Lucas,” Eliott whines, pushing against the restraining hands and attempting to dive back in for Lucas’s lips.

“No, wait,” Lucas resists with a laugh, dodging Eliott’s kiss. “Eliott, tell me we can go to your place.” This catches Eliott’s attention and he leans back, looking staggered by the question.

“Don’t you have class?”

“Lab,” Lucas admits. “Imane will forgive me.” He can’t honestly guarantee she will, but for this – for Eliott – he’s willing to take the risk.

“Ok.” Eliott’s eyes glide across Lucas’s face, landing on his lips. He swallows. “Let’s go to mine.”

* * * *

Lucas walks Eliott backwards into the apartment as they both blindly shuffle out of their coats, not sparing a moment to appreciate the new surroundings when he can be kissing Eliott instead.

“Lucas,” Eliott laughs against his lips, “I can’t see where I’m going.”

Lucas cracks his eyelids open only enough to ensure he’s not about to back Eliott into something, and making note of the carpeted living room just beyond them. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” He breathes the words onto Eliott’s lips, moving a hand into his hair to drag him back into a hard kiss. He doesn’t stop their progress across the apartment, assuming they’re moving in the general direction of the couch he’d seen. He does, however, misjudge.

Eliott’s legs hit the edge of the couch but the angle is wrong. When his legs give, it’s not the plush couch cushions that catch his fall. Instead Eliott hits the edge of the couch and tumbles directly to the floor. Lucas’s purchase on Eliott doesn’t lessen and he falls with him, landing in a tangle of limbs directly on top of Eliott’s body.

“Fuck,” Eliott groans with a laugh. “That was smooth.”

“Don’t care. Don’t care,” Lucas breathes in a rush, straddling Eliott’s waist and diving down for another kiss.

In his eagerness, his lips land at the corner of Eliott’s mouth, and with a rumble of laughter, Eliott’s hand moves to Lucas’s face, guiding him into a deep kiss and then gentling it. He bites at Lucas’s lip, sucking it into his mouth, before pressing forward with his tongue, meeting Lucas’s in the middle in a slick contact that sends shuddering heat through Lucas’s body.

Lucas’s hands flit from Eliott hair, to his face, to his chest, and back again, restless and needy. He digs fingernails into the flesh of Eliott’s biceps with a moan, tilting his hips to grind down against Eliott’s stomach. It’s not enough. It’s not ever enough with Eliott. Lucas has a moment of wondering if this is how it will be from now on – for as long as he’s with Eliott – for the rest of his life maybe – just _wanting_ , more and more, feeling this much. He wonders if he’ll survive it. He doesn’t think his heart can take this _and_ love. It might be the end of him. He’d choose it every time.

“Lucas,” Eliott mumbles against his lips, hands moving to Lucas’s hips with a suggestive squeeze, “we should get up.” His next words are muffled by the kisses Lucas peppers about his mouth, “My room. Bed. We should –” One of his hands moves, as though to separate them.

“No.” Lucas pulls back, grabbing him by the wrist and pressing it tightly to the floor beside his head. He doesn’t release his hold, panting as he stares down at Eliott, wild with a need he doesn’t try to control. “Want you here.”

Eliott’s eyes have widened and his breath stutters in his throat. He tests Lucas’s hold, his eyes darkening when it only makes Lucas tighten his grip. He could easily overpower Lucas. They both know it. And while his other hand is free, he makes no moves to interfere. He nods, swallowing heavily, and moves his free hand to the other side of his head to mirror the hand bound in Lucas’s hold. The feeling accompanying the sight is staggering, and Lucas has to dive down for another searing kiss. Eliott trusts him – trusts Lucas to make it good for both of them.

 _Fuck_ , how Lucas wishes he could stretch the moment, could spend hours worshipping Eliott’s body, could kiss every inch of him with the reverence he feels as he looks down at this beautiful boy of his. He’d make it last and last, until they were worn out and satiated in ways neither of them has ever known. There will be time for it later. For now, Lucas knows neither of them could stand it. Desperation sits too thick in the air between them, the need to find relief in one another’s body too great.

“Lucas,” Eliott whines, choked and needy.

“Yes,” Lucas breathes, a plan or an answer, he doesn’t know. He pushes up, squeezing Eliott’s wrist in warning before he releases. “Don’t move.” A shudder runs through Eliott’s body and he nods, eyes so blackened by his pupil, hazy and affected, it makes him look high.

Lucas sits up fully, quickly reaching for his own pants. There’s no way to take them off completely without moving from his position astride Eliott and he won’t. Instead he unzips them, shoving them along with his briefs down his ass just enough to release his erection. He grips it in his fist and strokes it once in a rough, dry slide. It does nothing to quell the swell of want coiling in his balls.

Eliott groans, a pained, desperate sound, and his hips jerk up, seeking relief for what is sure to be the desperate state of his own cock. Lucas licks his lips, looking up at Eliott with a slight smile as he brings his hand to his mouth, spitting in it before returning it to his erection, tugging it just once while Eliott watches, stormy eyes focused on Lucas’s hand. His own hands clench into fists next to his head, but he makes no move to touch Lucas, keeping them there and groaning in frustration instead.

“Lucas, fuck,” his hips twitch up once more, searching for Lucas’s touch, “Please. Touch me.”

Lucas’s patience is wearing thin as well, and he lifts himself slightly, shuffling back and planting himself on Eliott’s thighs, reaching for the clasp of Eliott’s jeans. He’s so hard, the shape of his erection is clearly defined through the restrictive material, and Lucas scrapes a nail across the length through the denim, listening to the way it makes Eliott suck in a broken gasp of air. He takes hold of Eliott’s waistband and tugs the pants and briefs down to his hips. His own body prevents him from stripping Eliott any further, but it won’t matter. This will be enough.

Lucas spits in his hand once more, bringing it down to Eliott’s erection and circling a tight fist around the base. Eliott’s lower back arches at the touch and he moans, a low, throaty sound. Lucas means to do no more than slick Eliott up, but he gets lost in watching his hand on Eliott’s cock. He drags it up to the swollen head and fits his thumb there, catching the precum that blurts from the tip as his hold tightens and releases, massaging the head in a grip that has Eliott throwing his head back with a gratified moan.

But the need of Lucas’s own body is making itself known, and he can’t wait any longer. He moves his hand from Eliott’s erection, tipping his body forward, and takes hold of Eliott’s wrists, pressing them into the carpet beneath them. Their erections slide together and they moan in unison. It’s extraordinary that even this can feel so good, just bodies pressed together. It’s because it’s Eliott – because it’s them together. Lucas is surprised the thought isn’t more terrifying. That too is because it’s him – Eliott – and it’s mutual. Eliott feels it too.

Lucas leans his weight onto the hands holding Eliott as he presses his hips down in a slow, satisfying grind. Their erections slide together, the friction lighting up nerve centers across Lucas’s body, echoes of pleasure he feels all the way to his fingertips. He repeats the movement, a driving thrust, rougher this time.

“Oh god.” He’s not sure if he speaks the words or Eliott.

Their position and his own shorter stature doesn’t allow him to stretch to claim Eliott’s lips and he settles for pressing his mouth to the skin beneath Eliott’s jaw, scraping his teeth there as the vibrations of Eliott’s moans tickle his lips.

Eliott’s hips are moving. Confined by the jeans around his thighs he can do little more than match Lucas’s movements against his body, thrusting up with every drive of Lucas’s body down. Their movements are slow but fueled by a need that has Lucas’s orgasm licking up his spine, starbursts at the edge of his vision, and he knows neither of them are going to last long.

He caresses thumbs against Eliott’s wrists, and his next thrust jerks them a few inches up the carpet. Eliott inhales around a noise caught in his throat.

“Lu – Lucas,” his voice is broken and strained, balanced on a razer-thin edge of control, “I’m gonna – fuck – I’m gonna –”

Lucas fucks down against him, their cocks, moving slicking together, and Eliott chokes on air, his hips thrusting up in tiny jerks of movement as he begins to come. He twists his wrists in Lucas’s hold, until, lost in the chase for his own climax, Lucas releases his purchase of them. Eliott’s hands fly to Lucas’s hips, his hold bruising, and he thrusts up in a series of brutal, hard movements as he rides out his orgasm. It feels a little as though he were fucking up into Lucas, grinding his cock into Lucas’s body as he surrendered all control. That thought is all it takes for Lucas. His mouth drops open and his body seizes, coiling tight before bursting free, painting Eliott’s stomach in his release, as black spots explode behind his eyelids.

It’s a moment before he comes back to himself, collapsed down against Eliott’s chest with his face tucked beneath Eliott’s chin. They’re both breathing heavily, and Eliott’s hands are gliding along Lucas’s skin. He sweeps them over Lucas’s back, down to his ass, fingertips dipping between his cheeks before smoothing up again. Lucas’s dick gives a feeble twitch at the sensation and he wonders how long it will take them to recover before they’re desperately reaching for one another again, seeking release in one another’s body. He’d like to be in a bed by then.

Lucas slides himself sideways off Eliott’s body, pushing up on one hand to look at the mess left between their bodies. He glides a finger through it, remnants of their pleasure, and brings it up to his lips, darting his tongue out curiously before sucking the digit into his mouth.

Eliott groans loudly. “Tryin’ to kill me.”

Lucas snickers, moving his eyes to Eliott’s face with a mischievous smile. Sweat dampens the roots of Eliott’s hair at the edge of his face and his skin is flushed, his eyes focused and set on Lucas. “What?” Lucas asks, blinking with an exaggerated innocence he knows Eliott won’t believe for a second.

“Ruined me for anyone else,” Eliott states, voice rough but heartfelt. “Knew it the first time I saw you.”

“Even before the sex?” Lucas asks, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it all the same.

“Yes,” Eliott answers simply, the truth of the statement ringing simple and true in his voice.

Emotion clogs Lucas’s throat so suddenly all he manages to choke out in response is, “Me – me too.” And perhaps it doesn’t near capture everything he feels for Eliott, everything he felt from the very moment they met, but he knows where his words fail, he will pour all of his adoration into action, with every touch, every kiss, every shiver of pleasure, speaking better than Lucas ever could. And Eliott will know. That all of this overwhelming… love, Lucas realizes… it’s going to be love if it isn’t already… is meant for him and him alone.

Eliott has moved a hand up to Lucas’s face and he strokes the backs of his fingers gently across Lucas’s flushed cheek. “Beautiful.” It’s startling to be told such a thing by the most beautiful person Lucas has ever known. He knows he’s blushing fiercely, and bereft of words to respond, he drops his eyes, turning his head towards the hallway branching off from the living room.

“We should move this to bed. Rug burn is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Lucas.” Eliott’s voice is soft, but serious, and it draws Lucas’s attention back to him immediately. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

Lucas’s face stretches into an instant smile and he laughs. “You’re asking me _now_?”

Eliott shrugs and sits up slightly, propping himself on his arms and putting their faces closer together. “Why not now?”

Lucas rolls his eyes, so charmed by Eliott, it feels as though he’s bursting at the seams, overflowing with affection. “Aren’t we already?” His heart thumps loudly in his ears speaking the thought out loud. Boyfriend. Eliott is his _boyfriend_. Lucas has never felt such pride at the thought of someone being his boyfriend before. But it swells in his chest. He’s proud. He’s so incredibly proud that this incredible person wants to be with him.

Eliott shakes his head. “I want it to be official. I waited for six months. I think I would have waited forever. I want to know for sure. I want to say it.” Count on Lucas to fall for an absolute and unapologetic romantic.

“Yeah, Eliott. I’ll be your boyfriend.”

Love. It’s definitely going to be love.

* * * *

* * * *

Yann snorts, moving a hand to ruffle it roughly through Lucas’s hair. “Yeah,” he continues, grinning at Idriss and Alexia who sit across the table, “so I show up and there’s no Lucas. I’m callin’, textin’, figuring he’s either curled up in depression mode somewhere, or he’s been murdered –”

“Why would I have been murdered?” Lucas interrupts.

“‘Cause you’re annoying as fuck, that’s why,” Yann responds without pause as Idriss and Alexia laugh. It’s an odd grouping they’ve found themselves in. Yann and Idriss had come together from class, Idriss tagging along as Yann came to meet Lucas in the café as he’d wanted to apologize to Lucas for his less than friendly behaviour at the party, and Alexia had only by chance stumbled across all of them and invited herself to sit down. The dynamic works though, and Lucas can’t help but love the fact that their friend groups are merging. It’s as though Eliott and Lucas are a center, holding everyone together. It might be a bit hyperbolic but Lucas knows there’s a ring of truth to the thought too. “Anyways,” Yann continues, “I figure he’s like, dead in a ditch, and I spend the whole fucking afternoon worrying, meanwhile he’s getting boned good and proper.”

“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” Lucas complains. “I just forgot I was meeting you and –”

“You were getting orgasms while I was convincing myself I was gonna trip on some grisly scene of your dismembered body –”

“Ok, no more true crime YouTube videos for you –”

“I get to complain,” Yann finishes, though he looks a lot more like he’s relishing the retelling of a good story.

“I think I would have rather been in the dark,” Idriss says with a laugh. “I get this selfie from Eli of them both looking completely fucked out with like twenty eggplant and peach emojis. Boy ain’t subtle.” Lucas has to laugh along at that. It had been after another round of earth-shattering sex as they’d been lying in the afterglow together in Eliott’s bed. Eliott had explained how worried and protective Idriss had been over the past weeks and how thankful he was to have such a good friend. He’d then decided the only way to express such affection for his best friend was to send a post-sex selfie that was sure to horrify him. Lucas had laughed, pressing a kiss to Eliott’s cheek as Eliott had taken the photo. Lucas doesn’t dare mention said photo is now his phone background.

“Well I thought you guys were together since Halloween,” Alexia adds with a disappointed shake of her head. “Can’t believe I missed out on all the drama.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Telling you means telling _all of you,_ and I would have had all you girls on my doorstep demanding to hear all.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Alexia asks with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’re lucky we love you at all.”

“I didn’t need to be smothered in girls and empathy, I needed –”

“To pout all alone in your room,” Yann finishes for him. “You were insufferable.” Lucas frowns but doesn’t get a chance to defend himself (though Yann isn’t exactly wrong) before Idriss speaks.

“You think you had it bad? Have you met Eli?” He throws his head back with an exaggerated groan of pain. “Sof and I were gonna murder him I swear. Worst part is he lives with Sander. So he’s seeing Sander and Robbe together all happy and in love and shit, and every day it’s ‘I’m never gonna have that, he doesn’t want me’ blah blah blah. I mean, damn, I’d already had months and months of him mooning over some kid he saw once. Then it’s all, ‘ _It’s him. Lucas is one,’_ and _still_ it somehow ends with him curled up on my couch, eating my food, crying about how he’d never know real love. Painful.”

Lucas frowns, the urge to stand up for Eliott too strong to ignore. “We both really liked one another,” he defends. “It sucked thinking it wasn’t going to work.”

“I don’t even get why you thought that,” Alexia admits. “I could see how hot you were for one another from space.”

Lucas shrugs. Their friends had been told a brief summary of events from Lucas and Eliott respectively, neither of them seeing the need to share all the details of their fairly spectacular miscommunication and the events that had followed. “We both kinda fucked up.”

“ _We figured it out eventually._ ”

Lucas turns, smile already stretching across his face, to see Eliott walking up to their table.

“Lucky for you,” Idriss snorts. “I was a day from murder.”

Eliott throws him an unimpressed look but otherwise doesn’t respond, instead leaning down to where Lucas has tipped his head up awaiting his kiss. Eliott doesn’t deny him, a hand moving to cup Lucas’s cheek as he presses their lips together in a soft, chaste kiss. He pulls back before Lucas has had his fill, and that just won’t do. Lucas grabs for him, grip tight to the back of his head as he hauls him back down, biting Eliott’s lip as punishment for thinking a peck on the mouth would ever be enough. Eliott puffs a laugh against his lips but responds, sinking down and into the kiss, wet and open-mouthed this time.

It’s probably a good thing their friends don’t put up with it for long. Lucas can’t be sure the kiss wouldn’t have devolved into something a lot less café appropriate if it weren’t for Yann and Idriss yelling something about ‘horny dickhead friends’, or maybe it was ‘horny friends with dicks’, Lucas can’t be sure. He isn’t particularly paying attention. Yann hauls him back from behind, while Idriss leans across the table to bodily shove Eliott backwards. They part with some reluctance, staring at one another with hazy eyes.

“I’m fine with it,” Alexia says. Lucas assumes it’s in response to the insults thrown by Yann and Idriss. “You guys want to go at it right here, I won’t complain. Hell, I’ll clear the table for you.”

Lucas turns to throw her an amused look. “You really have to be horny on main, hunh?” 

“Ok, first,” she raises a finger, “you’re one to talk. And second,” another finger joins the first, “you still haven’t hooked me up with Charlotte from your lab so… the _least_ you could do is provide while I’m so damn frustrated.”

Lucas laughs, raising hands in surrender. “I’ve been a little distracted. I’ll get on it this week.”

“You better,” she threatens.

“Are there no other seats?” Eliott asks, still standing by Lucas’s side.

Lucas glances around the café. He hadn’t noticed it had completely filled while he’d been waiting for Eliott. And he doesn’t dare mention the fact that Alexia had taken the seat they were reserving for him. “Here.” He scooches until he hangs half-off the other side of his chair and pats the space left. “Share with me.”

Eliott stares down skeptically at the space. “Baby,” he chuckles. The sound of the pet-name sends a beat of pleasure pulsing through Lucas’s body. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have a sizeable ass.” Yann snorts from his side. “That chair is not meant for both our asses combined.”

Lucas’s chest puffs with pride, taking the comment as the compliment he knows it was meant to be. “You can thank my mom for that. Good genes.”

Eliott exhales a laugh. “Yeah, when I meet your mom, I’ll make sure the first thing I say is, ‘Thank you for giving Lucas his most incredible ass.’” When. Eliott said _when_.

Lucas shrugs, looking up with a cheeky smile. “My mom will just be glad I have a guy who appreciates how lucky he is to enjoy this ass.”

“I am more than appreciative.” Eliott grins, and Lucas has a sudden vivid flashback to the night before as Eliott had kissed down his back and hadn’t stopped, parting the cheeks of Lucas’s ass with a mumbled ‘Want to kiss every bit of you,’ before he’d done just that. Heat blooms in Lucas’s belly at the memory. He’s pretty sure he hears Idriss saying something to Yann that’s at their expense but can’t be bothered to focus on anyone else. “I have a better idea,” Eliott says, gesturing for Lucas to stand, which he does with a quizzical expression. Eliott plops himself down into the chair and for one confused moment Lucas thinks Eliott is being a cheeky dickhead and has stolen his chair. That is until Eliott pats his lap with an expectant look.

“You want me to sit in your lap?” Lucas asks incredulous.

“Un hunh.” Eliott looks a lot like this was his plan all along. It couldn’t have been. He couldn’t have known he’d arrive to a full café and no seat available, but damn if he doesn’t look like the cat who caught the canary, smug and satisfied.

Lucas can feel the heat spreading from his belly until its crawling up his neck and he quickly turns, settling himself down onto Eliott’s lap before his blush becomes to obvious. Eliott’s arms move around his waist tugging him backwards in a tight hug as he rests his chin against Lucas’s shoulder.

It’s a silly thing to feel so shy about it. They just made out _with tongue_ in front of their friends, and yet, the gesture speaks to a different sort of intimacy. It’s comfortable, and warm, and Lucas is just… really, _really_ happy. It’s a relationship. Bizarrely, it feels like the first he’s ever had.

“So this is what we’re gonna have to put up with now, hunh?” Idriss asks, staring them down from across the table.

“They’re making me feel hella single,” Alexia admits with an envious sigh.

“Eh,” Yann dismisses with a shrug, “As long as I don’t have to watch his ass pouting around the apartment, I can deal.”

“Naw, man,” Idriss disagrees. “They keep this up, I’m gonna have to gouge out my eyes. Manon and I are taking it slow. My tolerance for them looking like they want to bang every two seconds is low.” His tone is teasing and the smile on his face contradicts his words. It’s obvious he’s thrilled for them both.

Eliott chuckles, his chest rumbling pleasantly against Lucas’s back. “You could become a hedgehog.” Lucas startles in surprise at the mention.

Idriss’s face pulls together in confusion. “I don’t know if I want to ask…”

“Tell ‘em, Lucas,” Eliott prompts, squeezing Lucas more tightly to his chest. “The thing about the hedgehogs and how their eyesight is so bad.” He says it as though he were proud of how very clever Lucas was for knowing such a thing. It’s stupidly sweet.

“Uh,” Lucas laughs, “that’s pretty much it. Their eyesight sucks.”

“No, no,” Eliott chides warmly. “You said it better before.”

Lucas turns his face with another laugh, rubbing his nose affectionately at Eliott’s temple. “That might have had something to do with it being directly after sex.”

“Ugh. I don’t need to hear this,” Idriss laughs.

“No, no,” Eliott disagrees, “it’s interesting. I looked it up. Hedgehogs –”

“You looked it up?” Lucas interrupts, twisting in Eliott’s lap to look at him better.

Eliott smiles, a little bashful but unapologetic about it too. “Yeah. I wanted to know more.”

“About hedgehogs.”

“That’s right.”

“Because I dressed up as a hedgehog?” He can’t believe this. He can’t believe he’s crazy about such a dumbass – can’t believe that this makes him like Eliott even more. Lucas doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to it, the way every little thing he learns about Eliott makes him fall even harder.

Eliott shrugs, mouth pulling up in a crooked smile with one hand rubbing affectionately against Lucas’s side. “Figured if I ever got a shot with you again, I should understand your temperament better.”

“Oh my god,” Lucas laughs, squirming in his hold in order to shove an elbow into his stomach. “You’re an idiot.”

Eliott shrugs, and his smile is utterly contagious. “You like me anyways.”

“Yeah,” Lucas admits without pause, a simple happy, acceptance. “I do.”

“You gonna share these fascinating facts or sit there being disgusting and in love?” Idriss asks.

Neither of them deny the accusation, turning in unison back to their friends, who wear varying expressions of impatience (Idriss), affection (Alexia), and amusement (Yann).

“Ok,” Eliott begins, sounding adorably enthusiastic about having the opportunity to share his knowledge. “Did you know hedgehogs have between 5000 and 7000 quills?” He squeezes Lucas tightly. “No kidding you’re so prickly.”

“Shut up!” Lucas laughs, settling back against Eliott’s chest as his boyfriend continues to lecture the group on all the fascinating facts he’s learned about hedgehogs, their friends looking torn between genuine interest, and clearly wanting to mock the shit out of them both. It’s a ridiculous conversation. Ridiculous and perfect.

So, he’s a hedgehog. Lucas thinks he’s ok with it. Besides, Eliott doesn’t mind his quills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr: surrealsunday
> 
> Well I hope that was as fun for you to read as it was for me to write! Love to you all!


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